Nature & Art: A Taste of My Philosophy & Experience
One of my favourite moments of the creative process is what I call the ‘first viewer experience’. That’s when you go into the studio with a steaming cup of tea and see what you’ve created the night before.
For that moment, you’re the viewer, no longer the artist. Whether the painting’s finished or not, whether it’s good or not, whether it’s how you remembered it or not, doesn’t actually matter. It’s a puzzle for your eye. Something to solve. It’s something new, that was never there before.
Then quite often, after being the viewer, an area or a mark will obviously need adjusting and you slip back into the mode of the artist. It’s time to get back to work and do another layer.
I’m a contemporary Australian artist, living and working in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
Over the past decade and a half, I’ve regularly exhibited my paintings, photographs and videos in Australia and internationally.
I’ve been painting nature and the landscape in different forms throughout my career, using travel as a springboard for inspiration and exploring my relationship to the landscape through my writing and painted impressions.
I love to visit places and then head back to the studio to explore on canvas the textures, colours and forms which have left impressions on my heart, without trying to control or force the outcome. The paintings emerge through a natural evolution and collaboration with my materials, inspiration and personal aesthetics.
These days, much of my work is drawn from the landforms around our home; mountains, ponds, wetlands and rock pools often embed themselves in my visual memory and emerge in my paintings. Our home is nestled between three mountains and their solid mass catches my eye during the day as they change colour with the shifting light.
Nature connects me to something much bigger than myself. It puts life in perspective. It’s where I feel most connected to the Sacred.
Over the years I’ve found healing and joy in nature; for my body, mind and soul. The more I surround myself with, immerse myself in and share the beauty of nature with others, the more overall wellbeing I feel and the more my life flourishes.
On the other hand, in my art practice and life I’m interested in exploring and acknowledging how our minds work. How we can be somewhere physically, but our minds are often occupied with concerns about the future or memories from the past.
We can be standing in front of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring mountain, but we’re thinking about what our partner said or didn’t say, about how much money we’ll have in the bank at the end of the week, or about work we need to catch up on when we get home. Instead of really being where we are and enjoying the gift of “being here”, we tend to miss the moment if we’re not bringing awareness around our mind’s natural tendency to wander off.
In 2008 I began to incorporate excerpts from my personal diaries into my art practice. I use those excerpts as the titles of my paintings and am interested in how their juxtaposition with the imagery of the paintings often creates a disjuncture. They rupture the ideological experience of pure landscape painting and give a small window for the viewer into my personal internal dialogue.
Whether it was what I was thinking about that morning, or a snippet that usually comes from my travels, the titles provide an interesting space where the viewer is invited to experience their own inner world and form their own interpretation of the work.
As for creative rituals, I have simple, yet effective and nourishing practices that feed my soul.
A cup of tea sipped quietly before I begin a new painting. A meditative walk through the neighbourhood where I notice the changing seasons through telltale signs of blossoms emerging or leaves falling in my neighbours’ gardens. Or one of my favourites, a spontaneous trip away in our campervan to see fresh landscapes and new places.
Once I’m back in the studio, I’ll often begin with a colour that’s caught my eye while out exploring, and not knowing how the painting will end up, I’ll begin to apply the paint. Through the actual process of painting, the imagery takes form. I don’t usually begin with a solid picture in mind; instead there’s a dance between my own internal visions, desires and aesthetics, and the materials, brushstrokes, and physicality of the very process of painting that informs how the painting will evolve.
Working in this way means each painting is a new adventure into the unknown.
Much like not knowing what exactly will happen when you go on a trip, each painting has its own hidden gems, and the challenge is to remain present and notice what’s happening in front of you, to work with, adapt to and polish this unfolding reality into something that delights, surprises and captivates you.
The whole process can take weeks and months, or it can unfold in a matter of minutes. Each painting is different like that. For me, knowing when a work is finished has very little to do with how much time it takes. Instead it’s about the complexity and intersections of the colours, or the serenity of the scene, or the way it draws your eye around the entire surface of the canvas; these are a few of the signals I’m looking for to know when a work is complete.
There usually comes a point where the painting has a ‘wholeness’ about it and that’s when I know it’s time to stop painting and observe the work quietly for a while. If I still find it captivating after a few weeks, if my eye is still content with the balance of the entire picture, I know it’s ready to go out into the world with its own identity.
What I love most about the creative process is the way it reminds you to trust in the unknown, be courageous, follow your heart’s desires, listen to your intuition, stretch out of your comfort zone, and bring to life something that wasn’t there before.
When it comes to materials, oil paints have long been my favourite medium.
I adore working with oils; the way they slip and slide is so sensual. They take a long time to dry, allowing me time to achieve the soft, atmospheric effects I’m after. Oil paints have a translucency, sculptural quality, vibrancy and lustre all of their own. They’re a pleasure to paint with.
As for canvases, I love to paint on linen as a preference over painting on cotton canvas. I love the natural fibres, the handmade feel and uneven surface of linen. I find it adds a beautiful quality to the surface of my paintings, and because I use such thin layers of paint in my atmospheric series, the subtle textures on the surface become an important component of the work when you view the painting up close. Linen is a naturally resistant and archival material, promoting the longevity of the painting and protecting it against mould and mildew in humid climates, so it wins out in all areas for me; aesthetics, practicality and archival quality.
Painting is my form of meditation.
It’s where I retreat to express my heart and explore the world. How I come home to myself and listen to my heart’s whispers. It’s what excites me, challenges me, and spurs me on with ever new possibilities to explore.
I find the whole process of creativity and painting challenging, puzzling, and magical. It keeps me hooked, longing to come back to the studio to see where it will lead and what will unfold next.
I couldn’t imagine living any other way.
With love,