The Community of Artists and a painting called "Jungle"

On Friday I had the opportunity to paint in my studio with a fellow artist - an experience that I haven’t had since I left South Africa a year and a half ago. We painted, chatted, looked at each other’s work and generally had a productive morning.


In the afternoon we went into the city to visit an exhibition at GoMA  (Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art)  Contemporary Australia: Women. The visit was prompted by an earlier discussion about a particular work: Noël Skrzpczak’s installation Jungle 2012. My friend had seen it on an earlier visit to the gallery. We were curious about the artist’s process, and wanted to see if we could work out how it had been made.

Detail: Noël Skrzpczak Jungle 2012 - Synthetic polymer paint - Site specific installation commissioned for this exhibition. Collection: The artist.

Close examination of this monumental work left us none the wiser. While chatting to a Gallery staffer we learned that when the work (in GoMA’s long gallery) was installed the entire area was screened off so the process would remain secret.

Detail: Jungle 2012

Essentially it’s poured paint, a smooth skin only millimetres thick. The vibrant pigments are luscious and delicious; juicy colours merge and blend, flowing down the wall. 

Metres high, it was almost impossible to photograph in its entirety. Joins in the painting were barely visible. It looks like a giant transfer adhered to the wall but that description doesn’t do the work justice. It's a wonderful work, full of energy and inspiring colour.

Jungle 2012 - View from the upper level of the Long Gallery

GoMA’s website says the following: 

Skrzypczak describes her monumental paintings as ‘addressing the wall’. While her    paintings showcase the brilliance of contemporary pigments and the painterly quality of flatness, her method is also intensely physical: rather than controlling paint with a brush, Skrzypczak uses an action-based pouring process. By emphasising her materials and the physicality of her process, Noël Skrzypczak reveals her belief in the continuing ability of the art of painting to give visible form to abstract ideas.

Mysterious Ochre

Every experience is influenced by its context. Our location, current circumstances and even emotional status alters our interpretation of events or experiences.

Some years ago, when I was still living in South Africa, I read a wonderful book by Victoria Finlay called   Colour: Travels through the Paintbox . I had borrowed the book from a friend but enjoyed it so much that I bought my own copy.

However, I scarcely remembered reading the section called The Australian Paintbox. I’m really glad now that I have the book because when I picked it up recently, I re-read it from a completely different perspective. Living in a different country with its own particular history has changed my perception of what Finlay has written.

On discovering that a shaped piece of rock / lump of earth was in fact a chunk of ochre pigment, Finlay realised that it was possibly used by an artist some 5000 years ago. In Greek the word means pale yellow – iron oxide – it was the first pigment. Her search for the origins of the colour led her to the heart of Australia.

The light and heat here is much like South Africa. But if anything it’s brighter and hotter, and the hole in the ozone layer just above us is threatening. The colours of Africa, yellow ochre, burnt sienna and earthy reds have a kinship with Australian earth colours. And then, because the sky here is so blue some days the red earth is even redder.

The Aboriginal painting tradition, the oldest continuous painting tradition, goes back for 40,000 years. The colours are bound up in age-old stories, rituals, mysteries and secrets. So much is hidden below the surface. Ochre was for many years a valuable commodity used as a bartering tool amongst various aboriginal peoples.

Last week I visited GoMA. One of the exhibitions celebrating GoMAs 5th Birthday was Across Country : Five years of Indigenous Art from the Collection.

I turned a corner in the Gallery and walked into an ochre room.

The colour glowed, highlighting the work on the walls and plinths.Indigenous artists from across the country have continued to find innovative ways to interpret their stories and experiences in an increasing range of mediums.