Nundah Village Art Show at Honda Northside Nundah

The Nundah Village Art Show opens this Saturday. It will be held at Honda Northside, 1329 Sandgate Road, Nundah. The exhibition is accompanied by the annual Nundah Village Street Festival. This show includes a wide range of high quality artwork from local artists and I’m delighted to be exhibiting four paintings. All paintings are for sale.

There are two landscapes,and both are nostalgic in that they recapture my love for the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, rekindled by my visit in December.

Afternoon Light, Drakensberg - oil on canvas 900 mm x 900 mm

Escarpment Shadows - oil on panel 610 mm x 455 mm

Still Life with Lilies is something of a departure from my usual style, being more detailed and representational. In the end I’m very happy with the result. 

Still Life with Lilies - oil on canvas 505 mm x 505 mm

The Reader is a mixed media work, including collage, charcoal as well as watercolour. When doing Sktchy portraits I experiment a lot with different media, finding it a good way to loosen up and try new tools. I like this portrait with a matt and frame - it looks complete and takes on a new gravitas. 

The Reader - mixed media on paper 435 mm x 335 mm

A new painting

During the winter holidays, while house sitting at my daughter’s home, I bought some white lilies, my favourite flowers. I did a few sketches and a quick watercolour, but I wanted to be able to use them as reference material in the future. I set up the flowers in a number of locations, to try different arrangements. My favourite place was the dresser in the main bedroom with the antique mirror and reflections of patterned wallpaper. Some pears in a bright green bowl in keeping with the foliage and a crystal candle holder completed the still life. 

The painting became a lot more detailed than was originally intended but I enjoyed the process immensely. At some stage, I would like to tackle a similar subject but in a much looser more abstract style. It will be interesting to see the two approaches side by side.

Still Life with Lilies - oil on canvas 605 mm x 605 mm 

Paintings at Nundah Village Art Exhibition

This weekend it's the annual Nundah Village Art exhibition. I have four paintings that will be exhibited. The artwork can be viewed on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th September, from 10.00 am to 3.00 pm both days.

Exhibitors can enter work in various categories: Landscape, Contemporary, Portraiture and Still Life, as well as a section for sculpture. I have paintings in four categories, so each work is quite different. 

Low Tide - Currumbin Beach is of a particular place and time. It recalls a bright winter day - a cold wind - a very low tide and white light reflecting off the sea. The human element, the little girl is there, but dwarfed by the vast stretch of beach - she's the only one to brave the chilly wind.

If you would like to see the process of this painting, I have complied a Flipagram here.

Low Tide - Currumbin Beach - oil on canvas ©2015 Carol Lee Beckx

Strata has a very different feel. I've been working on this painting for quite a while. It's the kind of painting that has to take time; like the way the geology of the earth is built up layer upon layer over time. Certainly this is not a motif that can be rushed. I enjoyed the change of pace with this painting, using gentle muted colours and abstract shapes, hinting at the layers of the earth.

Strata oil on canvas ©2015 Carol Lee Beckx

My entry for the Portraiture section is Reflection. It's a portrait of my Great Niece, reflected in a nearby window - sitting quietly on some boxes - totally absorbed in her own thoughts. 

Reflection - oil on linen ©2015 Carol Lee Beckx

The last painting is Love Dahlia -  watercolour on paper, my favourite pink makes an appearance here.  

Love Dahlia - watercolour on paper - framed ©2015 Carol Lee Beckx

When I look at these four paintings together I realise that my star sign, Gemini, is evident here - a different person seems to have been involved with each one...

Two Commissions delivered this week

Two commissioned paintings were delivered this week and they are quite different. The first was a portrait, not of a person but of Blaze - a much loved pet.

He was not too keen on being photographed, wanting to be at his master's side rather than posing in the sunlight. Eventually, however, I managed to get a lovely image that I could use for his portrait. My client is so delighted with this portrait that he has asked me to paint another so he has a gift for the vet who has been treating Blaze. 

Blaze - oil on canvas - 8" x 8"  © 2014 Carol Lee Beckx

The second painting to be delivered had a nostalgic theme. My client's Mother passed away a few years ago and she wanted a painting to honour her Mother and their close bond. We decided on a still life featuring her Mother's favourite cup and teapot, a lacy tray cloth and with the addition of a plate of Dutch Poffertjes. This was a treat mother and daughter often enjoyed together. Of course, I had to do extensive research to get the Poffertjes correct. A couple of cafe visits were necessary - an artist's life is tough.

Tea Time Memories - oil on canvas - 16” x 20” © 2014 Carol Lee Beckx

Still life - yesterday, today and tomorrow.

On Saturday afternoon I did a Still Life demonstration at Art Shed Brisbane, a jewel of an art store. It's an artist's delight containing many tempting materials. The demo lasts two hours with a short break at half time. It's not enough time to complete a painting but sufficient to make a good start. I have worked on the painting for another couple of hours, altering some colours, re-drawing certain sections and adding more juicy colour to the poppies.
There is an album showing the process of Blue vase with Poppies on my Facebook Page.

Blue vase with Poppies – oil on canvas 600mm x 600mm

 © 2011 Carol Lee Beckx

It’s fitting that I should be writing about still life at the moment. Australia has recently lost a fine proponent of the genre – Margaret Olley. While her contemporaries experimented with various other styles and ‘isms’ she concentrated on still life and painted the objects in her home in bold vibrant colour, delighting in the simple things in life. She was one of Australia's treasures.

The Still Life genre traces its history back to the Dutch term “Still leven”. The Italian term is “natura morte” which literally means dead nature and indeed many early paintings featured dead birds. The artists wanted to emphasise that their paintings had substance and were not simply indulgent paintings of beautiful objects. So within the paintings there were deeper meanings reminding the viewer of the transience of human life. This was symbolised by wilting flowers, mouldy fruit or the inclusion of a skull.

There is a story from Greece going back to 440 BC that tells of a competition between two of the best painters, Zeuxis and Parrharsius. One painted a bowl of grapes that the birds tried to peck they were so lifelike. He thought he would be the winner and went to look at his rivals’ work. He saw a painting covered by a curtain and tried to push the curtain aside – only to discover that the curtain was in fact painted. Guess who won that round?    

During the Medieval period – there were no still life paintings as most were of religious subjects and the style was largely symbolic. Towards the beginning of the 14^th century things started to change and by the following century with the invention of perspective, artists were now able to represent objects realistically showing form and volume.

The first artist to realistically represent simple objects was a Venetian, Jacopo Barbaro who painted the Still Life with Partridge and Iron Gloves 1504 which is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. He signed his work too – but did so on a small piece of paper painted on the bottom of the picture.

Paul Cezanne said “I shall conquer Paris with an apple” and Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers are among the best known Impressionist works. The genre has had many changes over the years and in the Twentieth century there were many variations.

And now in 2011 the still life moves off the picture plane and on to the gallery floor as still life objects become installations. with the use of computer generated images allows the artist to manipulate images at will.