the farthest west we’ve ever driven, Fowler’s Gap 2019

During a week’s residency in the arid landscape of Fowler’s Gap, my senses were almost drowned by the colour and space. I obsessed over painting the colours of the place at every time of the day, capturing its essence before it changed in the link of an eye. I found that colour overwhelmed any sense of line or form and, as a result, my paintings were simple, primarily considering the fine balance between hue and space.

Returning to my studio, I explored this concept further, developing a body of work which considers my sensory experience of place (the arid Australian landscape), situated within a contemporary painting context.

A series of 21 acrylic paintings on sanded ply complete this body of work (20x14cm each). They are painted entirely from memory, referring only to my paintings from the field rather than any photography. The ply was sanded to a form reminiscent of the landscape I remember. The paint was applied in layers, then the supports re-sanded to the finished form. These paintings seek to represent the landscape through the lens of memory, experience and intuition. They offer the viewer a fleeting image of place (a waterhole, a road, the horizon perhaps), again reminding us that the landscape is not final and the image never complete, only one perception.