Friday, August 24, 2007

MOI

Just thought I'd post a picture of me. This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago by Nicci Shrimpton who is doing the PR for my next solo exhibition 'Prayers For The Planet: We are all the same.' www.nscomm.com The painting in the background is now finished! It is called 'Searching Inside The Horizon'.

I love using landscape elements as metaphors for life. What are our horizons? Do we limit ourselves by not 'looking' beyond? Once we have reached what seems to be the horizon there is always another. What can this mean for our lives?

In the past I spent many hours driving along western Queensland roads watching the horizon. Yet, what about my own personal horizons? Well, I think they are constantly moving and changing. Also, I have rediscovered some. Maybe our dreams are our horizons? As adults I think we lose sight of our dreams when busy lives close down the distance and space we need to dream. We need to keep our horizons in sight.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

CLOSE DISTANCE


This gouache on paper painting was completed a few years ago. I re-discovered it in one of my folders because I've had a request from Dubai for lots of images. This is fantastic and hopefully will lead to some purchases. Time will tell! But, the exciting thing is that as I looked at the various titles of my re-discovered paintings I realised I have been somehow connected with unseen vibrations for a long time.

This painting above is called 'At Close Distance'. How can distance be close? I wanted to suggest the idea that distance is not something we sit outside of. We are actually inside distance and therefore it is all around, emmersing us. Distance is both temporal and spatial....we have a distance from ourselves over time, but we are connected to this time rather than being separate from it. This line-of-sight gives us the gift of perspective. It is up to us how we perceive this perspective and how we adjust our thoughts and behavours if we don't like what we perceive.

'At Close Distance' is a vast landscape on the one hand, but a detailed inventory of the forces of energy within the landscape. It is macro and micro, combining the two. This is also about perspective and our ability to see the big picture but also see its components and how they affect each other. The question then is how can we change these associations if they are not helful to us?

Some exciting news! My next exhibition 'Prayers For The Planet: We are all the same' opens on October 12 and continues until November 3 @ Doggett Gallery, Brisbane www.doggett.com.au I have teamed with War Child Australia for this exhibition. I will be giving %9 of exhibition sales proceeds to War Child which is an international relief and development agency dedicated to providing immediate, effective and sustainable aid to children affected by war. www.warchild.org.au More on this in future BLOGS.

I am also presenting at the University of Queensland's 'Australian Centre For Peace and Conflict
Studies' under their Art, Culture and Peacemaking Project. The title of my presentation is Art, 'Artists + Conversations = Peace Talks?' and the date for this is October 16. More on this in future BLOGS as well.

At Close Distance Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm unframed

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

THANK GOODNESS


I cannot believe I last posted on the 18th July. It only seems like yesterday. My middle daughter has had her birthday and last weekend we had the 'joy' of six 13-14 year old girls sleep over. They watched videos for hours, ate rubbish and then slept...for a few hours.

I am busy working towards my next show at Doggett Street Gallery opening October 12. The exhibition is called 'Prayers For The Planet: We are all the same.' The painting above will be in the exhibition. It is called 'Thank Goodness'. It is a large painting 92 x 107 cm. I wanted to weave the tree of life into the strata of the earth. I also wanted the feel of rain and the appearance of this rain penetrating the strata. I wanted the sense of looking beyond the surface.

How many times do we exclaim 'Thank Goodness!'... or 'Thank God!'? If you think about it these exclamations are really about gratitude, relief, love, hope. I've noticed when I say/exclaim them and then stop to think about what I really mean, my feelings normally reveal complete relief, hope and an almost exasperated 'it's about time!' However, when I have stopped and thought I try to elliminate the exasperation and focus on being truly thankful.

When rain falls from the sky during drought times people exclaim 'Thank God!' or 'Thank goodness it's raining!' I've lived in rural Queensland for most of my life and I have heard these exclamations many times from friends, my Father, myself! I now live in Brisbane which is suffering from severe lack of water due to drought. When it does rain I hear the same things.
These exclamations are normally said with emphasis and emotion. They are really prayers of thanks, prayers for the planet...as well as being heartfelt exclamations of relief.

My painting above is about rain, thankfullness and looking beyond the surface of things, words, actions and life.