Creativity and Abstraction workshop, Sydney

Image: Gabrielle Jones, "Hillside, Whitegums" Oil on Canvas, 101 x 101cm 2011

I am conducting a Creativity and Abstraction Workshop on September 24th at Sydney's Balmain (easy, free parking) from 10am to 4pm. Using observation of real objects, I'll walk you through a number of exercises, thinking methods, tools and imagination games to develop your ability to make interesting abstract work, move your realistic paintings away from the predictable, or improve composition and subject ideas. Tuition is structured to ensure fast learning and early success and stimulate creativity and generate ideas for on-going work.  Suitable for those wishing to break out of their current painting rut, move from realism to abstraction, or who simply wish to explore abstraction and their creativity.

I held one a few weeks ago and the participants left with heaps of ideas for their work and the confidence to execute it when alone in their studios.

The cost will be $125 for the day. Morning and afternoon tea will be provided.
Further details (materials list, payment details etc) will sent upon inquiry. Contact me if interested:http://www.gabriellejones.com.au/pages/contact.html

Disovery of the week-ish: Zhu Jinshi

Image: Zhu Jinshi, Work no.1, 2008; Oil on Canvas, 120 x 110cm

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Image: The distant reaches are Chaotic, Oil on Canvas 2007

Image: Zhu Jinshi, Woman Hero, 2007,Oil on Canvas

OK. So since his work's been seen at art auctions, I guess he's no discovery to the rest of the world. But I've never seen his work before, and I'm hoping one or two of you haven't, either. So here's a couple of paintings.

I like the excessive paint application, the colour and combination of form and line. It's like a beefed up Cy Twombly from the Autumn Series. Obviously about paint but so much in a landscape vein.

The title link leads only to the artnet site listing artworks for sale. It was difficult finding his gallery, as the named galleries don't list him as a represented artist. MMMMM! Sounds familiar...an artist who's this good and no obvious representation....... or getting the run around from his/her gallery.

Let me know if you know his gallery or like his work.

New Studio New work

Have moved into my new studio last week. What a major task that is! Waiting for paintings to dry so I could move them meant I couldn't paint for at least a week, packing up and sorting the accretion of junk and visual stimulus I impulsively collect...but it's all been worth it.

It's amazing what being able to hear the cicadas in the evening will do for the soul, and walking past the gardenias and lemon verbena in the morning just sets the day up nicely.

I have been having fun and the work has kicked in in earnest...I have managed to complete (I think) two paintings (left) that have hung on my previous studio wall for months. Mind you, they are quite a departure from my usual work, but it's liberating to play and experiment, and I am quite happy with the, especially the simpler one.

The trouble is, I used acrylic in stead of enamel paint over oil paint in the brown painting, because I didn't read the label and put them with the wrong set...think anyone will notice? Know if I can get away with it??? I need to stretch these canvases, as I stapled them to the wall when the money wasn't flowing.... Might cause them to crack. Oh well, the beauty of painting is in the process, isn't it??

Tony Tuckson -"Pairs," Watters Gallery Darlinghurst

I wandered into this gallery, knowing that I could reliably find something interesting at this iconic space of choice of many Sydney artists . I didn't even know that Tony Tuckson was on here, and what a joyful discovery that was!

I must preface this review with a comment: I often think that the work of deceased artists is denigrated by the post-humus exhibitions conducted by their galleries, digging up anything that is half decent and offering it to the name-hungry art "connoisseur" (with an understood tag line "buy now, very limited stock available"). Many artist's private musings, thoughts and scribbles alike are bundled up with drawings and artwork yet to be finished or to survive the artist's editing process and offered as works of value from a genius' mind. I understand that these items have an academic use, and students of art and history love and need to know what the artist was thinking, musing and scribbling about. But I think that the artist's gallery should donate such work to the appropriate galleries or museums and resist the temptation to make money, while protecting and enhancing the reputation of the artist who, in life, has enriched them in more ways than one.

That said, this exhibition does not fit the above category. Many of the works are easily identified as Tucksons, with the added bonus of displaying the influence of Ian Fairweather -two for the price of one! (According to Frank Watters, Fairweather was one of the few artists whose work Tuckson owned.) I hadn't picked up this influence before, but these works display the link so clearly that I think I must have been blind not to realise it. That discovery alone is worth seeing this exhibition.

But -there's more. Tuckson reveals himself to be a master of gouache - the way he moves it around the page and lets it dribble and fall shows a skill level easily as strong as his oil works, for which he is better known. Further, the sheer volume of the sketches, mostly in ball point pen, emphasises the dedication of this artist who must have been drawing every minute he wasn't being the (full time) Deputy Director at the Art Gallery of New South Wales! No lunch break for this guy.

Some of the works show an obvious influence from Picasso and other artists, being executed in a search to discover and internalise how these works were made - the "art" in the paintings. My only criticism of the show is that none of the works have a date on them so I can locate them in Tuckson's history and in relation to what was happening in the world at the time -but that's probably because they weren't dated by the artist, whose full time job seems to have allowed him a freedom to paint and draw whatever he pleased, without concerns for his "career" as an artist or where the next dollar was coming from (a lesson duly noted by this artist!)

Apparently, these works would not have been able to be exhibited even a few years ago, such was the state of the paper that was used -any piece that came to hand. However, the Watters staff were insistent that these works needed showing, and discovered that a lengthy process of lamination onto a special Indian, acid free paper would preserve them. This and the framing costs mean that the gallery stands to make little profit from this exhibition.

Do yourself a favour and go see it - on till 3rd October

Image: Tony Tuckson, td2914 Gouache on paper 55.9 x 78.6cm

Steven Harvey "Ark 44: Paintings from Kakadu"

When I first picked up the invitation for Steven Harvey's new exhibition at Liverpool St Gallery, I had just seen the work of a skillful photo realist painter, and was wondering if I shouldn't pursue that type of art instead of the abstract landscape I had been grappling, struggling, fighting with and possibly drowning in. Seeing Harvey's work changed that straight away - if I could ever paint like him, the struggle would be worth it. Abstraction IS my artform of choice. Period. No Comparison.

So I saw the show today...it's not an easy one, and demands time from the viewer, which is more than rewarded by the experience of sinking into the cool dark canyons of "Ark 44 Jim Jim Falls" and "Pine Falls Kakadu". I swear I could hear the birds! How does he do it? Paint refuse bubbles up from under layers of scrapings and trowelling, or hint at a substrate not quite there, or evidences a mine full of other workings underneath; exposing not much more than the fact that the eye sees more at a glance than the brain comprehends over time.

I happened to run into Steven, who told me he spent only two weeks in Kakadu, but all the works on paper were done and finished there. He then worked from other abstract drawings he made on site, then from these drawings again, further abstracting them until he reached a concentrated, simplified experience of the land around him. (It was great to discover he works in a similar process to me!) These works are apparently simple, but monumental in their effect on me and the wall that could barely contain them- wonderful objects exaggerated by the "double canvas" construction, where the sides are painted elements from his abstract drawings.

The works on paper are all gorgeous and rendered on hand-made paper in Indian powdered pigment - the small work "Long Shadow, Ubir Rock Kakadu" is a beautiful piece of unexpected colours, freshly painted simplicity and an almost "primal calling" that, to me, represents the best of Steven' work and was offered here at an unbelievably reasonable price. Oh the pain of no money!

Take the time to let your eye roam the surfaces (and sides) of these works; marvel at what seems easy yet speaks volumes in a quiet but very insistent, authoritative voice. On at Liverpool St Gallery, Darlinghurst until 1st October

Image: Steven Harvey, Long Shadow, Ubir Rock Kakadu 2009

Idris Murphy, “I and Thou”, plus Southerly Buster

Hazelhurst Regional Gallery (Sutherland Shire Council, Gymea)

The opening of the survey show for this landscape artist last Friday night attracted the glitterati – well, the older patrons/friends and volunteers of the Gallery, Damien Minton (Gallery Owner), Randi Linnegar (King St Gallery Director and Idris’ dealer); Celia Gullett (artist, Tim Olsen Gallery and personal friend), Terry O’Donnell (also ex teacher COFA and East Sydney Tech), Annette Tzavaras (Art theorist, Fundraiser extraordinaire and seemingly everywhere I go) and Alison, another friend, who, I discovered, owns 23 of Idris’ paintings due to the fact that he is the godfather of her children! Ah Hem… well, we thought we were special, anyway (especially after a few wines and Idris signed our catalogues).

But the point is, this artist is well respected by many artists in the Sydney community, and recognition, though late in life, is coming thick and fast and, to my mind, not a moment too soon. He is a wonderful colourist, who combines colours even other colourists would never think of using, but somehow it works.
But here’s a warning -for non-artists, his work takes a bit of getting used to. His paintings are naive in execution –or “cacky handed” as I think John McDonald said – and he draws trees in a manner of a third grade school kid. However, on longer viewing, these seemingly simple paintings reveal a nuanced touch; a hardly decipherable composition where perspectives shift and the landscape is flattened; a skilled observation diluted to its simplest and most direct execution, and, importantly, evoke a sense of place and time of day. Stand in the gallery and cast your eye quickly over the whole show and I defy you not to be uplifted by the riot of colour and to discern an artists’ personal language somewhere between an indigenous rendering and European perception of a rather alien land.
An added bonus to the show is a rather excellent and even formidable exhibition of work from artists of note (mostly young) with connections to the “Shire” called “Southerly Buster”. Silke Raetz work is my favourite and a recent discovery for me, but all are excellent.

If you aren’t familiar with Idris’ work, then I encourage you to visit this show and be thoroughly out of your comfort zone. If you are familiar with it, enjoy the ride. Both exhibitions on till 4th October

Silke Raetze, Tender Trap (afetr Cupid) 2009, Oil on canvas with stitched canvas pieces, Courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Gallery
Images: Idris Murphy, Weipa Harbour, Storm Clouds 2005, Acrylic and collage on board, 120 x 120cm

John Peart, “Mainly Painting”

Went to visit the almost renovated, and thankfully quieter Watters Gallery to see this show by this well respected and prolific former teacher of mine. There were a number of unexpected treasures here, the most obvious being “E camaldulensis”, a wall sculpture made by this painter from the twigs/branches of the same name, intertwined in a grid formation that presents the basis of John’s investigations over the last couple of shows. The structure throws pleasant shadows on the wall and intrigues the eye with the play between real and ephemeral; and rough tactility of the materials opposing the geometric, linear nature of the final structure.

Frankly, besides loving the work, I was jealous because I had thought of doing a sculpture in found branches for my upcoming show, "Trees for my Father", and now it will look like I copied him. Damn!

As for the rest of the show, there is a surprising variety coming from works more closely related to this sculpture in their rawness (such as “Lattice”, “ShadowGrille” and the collages) combined with more finished, but still related works - all line, grid and experimental process – such as Ground Formations, the “Panel” paintings and Harvey’s shields. Through it all, it’s obvious that John is playing with chance -the multiple possibilities of his arrangements of squares in the “Grid” pictures; the varied drip, brush, line and colour work apparently laid at random; and the layering process, which leaves some elements to show through whilst others are coloured, attest to this.

Here is the work of an artist in control of his medium and process, and the painting, “Gradeground 1” is a ripper! (Geoffrey Legge, the co-Director of Watters quietly told me this one painting would knock Pollock’s “Blue Poles” out of the gallery if placed beside it). For my money, “Ground Formations” was close on its heels.

However, as I often find with John’s shows, a little more editing would work wonders in my opinion. Some paintings tend towards the muddy (“Grey Grid”) or uncomfortable/ugly colour combinations (“Tetrad 5”) and one of the Panel Paintings (I think it was 5) just didn’t work – it looked simply messy to me, and my eye kept going to one area that had red in it and being left stranded there. The collages are all pretty good and excellent value for an artist of this standing.

John Peart, Watters Gallery 11^th Aug to 5^th September

Image: John Peart, “E Camaldulensis”, 2009 Red gum wood, 122 x 244 x 15cm