The landscape has been a significant aspect of Australian painting and continues to resonate in our consciousness metaphorically and as a presence, backgrounding a range of concerns and experiences for artists and the broader population alike.
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre presents ‘Sublime Point: The Landscape in Painting’, an exhibition of contemporary landscape paintings by 25 artists from across Australia.
The exhibition demonstrates a wide variety of approaches to and uses of landscape in contemporary painting with some interesting intersections as well as differences. It intends to show how artists are featuring landscape in their work as a signifier for aesthetic and cultural issues and understandings.
The artists selected for the exhibition are based in many different regions from around Australia; rural, remote and urban. Techniques employed by the artists reflect this diversity as does the use of landscape which may originate from a cultural and spiritual attachment to place or an urban sensibility to a changing environment. For others the landscape provides a vehicle for the exploration of self, responses to the historical aspect of landscape and a relationship with nature.
Some artworks have been created specifically for the exhibition. James Dodd from South Australia has created a new large scale commissioned work, using his signature style combining aerosol and stencilling. Originally a respected street artist using the tag name Dlux, Dodd’s practice is influenced by his travels throughout Australia, where he often collects and documents an archaeology of signs represented in random markings, the anonymous traces of the culture and people particular to place.
Locally based artists in southern Sydney seem instinctively drawn to the landscape and natural environs. Represented in the exhibition are Peter Sharp who expresses the sublime experience of encounters with natural phenomena, Ildiko Kovaks who works intuitively using abstract forms to recreate a sense or memory of place, and Alexander McKenzie whose luminous and evocative paintings employ landscape as metaphor for personal narrative while referencing the techniques of Dutch masters.
Other artists in the exhibition include, Churchill Cann (WA), Tony Clark (ACT/Italy), Sally Gabori (QLD), Daniel Boyd (NSW), Noel McKenna (NSW), Imants Tillers (NSW), Neridah Stockley (NT), Caroline Rannersberger (TAS), Stephen Bush (VIC), David Ralph (VIC), Mark Rodda (TAS/VIC), Paul Ryan (NSW), Kate Shaw (Vic), Joanna Lamb (WA), Chris Langlois (NSW), George Tjungurrayi (NT), Tjala Women’s Collaborative (SA), Amber Wallis (NSW), Oliver Watts (NSW), Philip Wolfhagen (TAS).
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre
Until 30 November 2014
Sydney
Sally Gabori, Dibirdibi Country, 2011, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 198 x 455cm
Stephen Bush, Furthered, 2012, oil and enamel on linen, 203 x 244cm
Photography: Andrew Curtis
Courtesy the artists, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
