Nicola Moir at Gallery East, Clovelly

Hanging the Show

One Way in Beach Street

One Way in Beach Street

Watercolour on Arches

76cm x 56cm

Coast in Progress

Coast in Progress

Watercolour on Arches

57cm x 38cm

This painting needs more work but I enjoy the energy that comes with under-painting a scene and the marks that result. I have used a lot of phthalo blue in this underworking, phthalo is the most over-powering watercolour colour I have come across. It can dominant the work and is hard to control, but it is so beautiful and intense.

Returning to Simeon Street

 Simeon Street Roofs

Mixed Media on Arches Paper

46cm x 38cm

From Simeon Street

 From Simeon Street

Watercolour, Ink, Chinese Paint on Bockingford 

33cm x 26cm

From Simeon Street Ink

Ink on Watercolour Paper

24cm x 24cm

I recently discovered a new view of Clovelly from a high point near Simeon Street. It gives a wonderful outlook onto the landscapes and the graveyard and ocean in the distance. These are quick sketches from that point.

Blank Spaces

Fern Street Road

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Rice Paper
58cm x 42cm

It is often hard to know when a painting is finished. In watercolour it is really important to be aware of over-working as this can dull a piece irretrievably. Oil and acyclic perhaps more forgiving as paint can be scraped back or painted on fresh. In watercolour I enjoy that each brush stroke is intrinsic to the final painting. Obviously, as a result I am attempting to make each stroke deliberate and beautiful, and also diverse. In these recent pieces I am deliberately exaggerating the under-working to leave some of the rice paper or watercolour paper completely exposed.

Fern Street

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Rice Paper
50cm x 42cm

Bronte Fence

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Arches
33cm x 27cm

October Coogee

October Coogee

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Arches Paper
57cm x 34cm

Today I visit Gallery East in Clovelly where my solo show will be in April 2011. The exhibition was another local artist called Nick Hollo.  Like my recent work, he is also inspired by the Sydney landscape as his subject-matter. He uses oil pastels on board to create wonderful bold interpretations of the landscape.

Clovelly rock walk sketches

 Clovelly Sand

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Arches

 20cm x 19cm

Clovelly rocks

Watercolour and Chinese Ink on Arches

26cm x 20cm

The distinct linear clouds combined with the pattern of rock or sand offers an inspiring reference point. In these small pieces I am using this real-life reference to abstract and suggest. Increasingly, my desire is to abstractly conceive reality in a way that does not purely abstract but rather captures the monumentality of the landscape. I want every brushstroke to express and to have purpose.

Coogee Distilled

Coogee Distilled

Watercolour on Arches Paper

47cm x 33cm

Coogee is a suburb with a distinct visual language. The low-lying red roofs, the use of red brick, the exposed electricity wires, the mature foliage between the buildings. I want to reduce the representation to give a sense of this rhythm so that the painting could be representative of anywhere in the area rather than just a particular view. 

South Coogee Horizon

South Coogee Horizon

Watercolour on Arches

58cm x 39cm

The in-between spaces

The in-between space

Watercolour on Arches Paper

57cm x 37cm

This is a painting from a space in-between I found when I was walking from A to B. I love walking. I often walk rather than take the car or bus. It takes me longer but I enjoy it. I enjoy feeling how spaces connect. So often we rely on transport to take us from A to B without enjoying those spaces in-between. I am a fan of the author Will Self who has written a book called Psychogeography. Basically, he argues that transport, particularly the car, has removed us from understand our landscape. He proposes that people understand the world as a series of disconnected microcosms without any understand how they relate. To better understand the landscape people should walk more.

Eastgardens Watercolour

Eastgardens Watercolour

Watercolour on Arches Paper

57cm x 38cm

This is the view looking south from the Westfield Eastgardens carpark. The view looks down Denison Street and eventually to Port Botany on the horizon. The distinctive red roofs illustrate the residential area of this landscape.

Auctioning the Landscape

Auctioning the Landscape

Acyric, Ink, Collage, Chinese Paints on Card
64cm x 51cm

This piece is an experiment using collage and even looser treatment of the landscape. The collage comes from the Southern Courier a local paper that has a large section with local real estate advertisments. The idea was to reference the fundamental aspect of economic value in the construction of the landscape. I really enjoy the work of Mark Bradford who uses collage in a unique way to create abstract map-like, layered pieces. Bradford finds all the materials used from the street in the form of posters or flyers then reappropriates them as an artwork.

Abstracting rock patterns

Clovelly and the Vans

Chinese Paint and Ink on Rice Paper

42cm x 40cm

Clovelly Monochrome Ink Sketch

Chinese Ink on Rice Paper

58cm x 42cm

In these ink sketches I am reducing the landscape to pattern from the water and rock. The sandstone rock provides endless reference for abstraction.

La Perouse Ink Path

La Perouse Ink Path

Chinese Ink and Paint on Rice Paper

42cm x 65cm

This pathway runs parallel to the coast of Botany Bay and is set within the urban suburb of La Perouse. Yet , at times the density of the forest removes all of these geographical associations for a moment so that the pathway could be anywhere in the bush. I enjoy these spaces in the city where I can feel emersed in 'nature'.

This piece on rice paper, a wonderful translucent surface, and as I am learning a less robust one. In the centre of the painting you may notice a hole where you can see my ink covered drawing board.

Paths to Abstraction

I have reviewed the present Paths to Abstraction exhibition on at the Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. The exhibition brings together over 150 pieces from Impressionism, Nabis, Fauvism, Cubism and Dada, to name a few. The basic premise of the exhibition challenges the idea of a hegemonic narrative and suggests is that there was no single movement to abstraction in European art but rather the paths to abstraction in were varied and unpredictable. The article can be read here in the New Linear Perspectives the literary arts and culture journal. 

Watson Bay Boat Sketch

Watson Bay Boat Sketch

Watercolour, Ink and Chinese Paint on Arches 300gsm

33cm x 24cm

Watsons Bay Californian Bugalow

Watson Bay Californian Bungalow

Watercolour on Arches Paper

75cm x 56cm

Suburbia

Today I had time to get to the Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney city. As I neither work or live in the city I do not go there often, so when I do visit I become acutely aware of how different the urban environment is there to the more expansive suburban Sydney. The density is significantly higher with more people, taller buildings and subsequently less sunlight. Perhaps due to its unfamiliarity I felt no desire to connect with this landscape and try to paint it. However my suburban ease was appeased in the Gallery of NSW in a large painting by Howard Arkley entitled 'Superb + solid' (1998) painted in synthetic polymenr on canvas . This is unusual as it engages with the suburbian landscape which is often disregarded in Australian landscape painting for the city or the bush. The house seems to be a more modernised take on a federation home perhaps built in the 1950s. The artist has distilled the image so that the suburban home almost takes on an iconic feel of a glossy real-estate photo. The idea of Suburbia has many connotations between a positive and comforting place to an isolating and unprogressive environment. It seems for an urban environment that is so significant  and dominant in Australia there should be more artists examining the subject-matter.

Howard Arkley, 'Superb + solid' (1998)