A visit to the Archibald Portrait exhibition

Yesterday a friend and I drove from Brisbane down to the Tweed River Gallery just over the border in New South Wales. Our visit was to see the Archibald Portrait Exhibition. It  was the most perfect day and the gallery is in an idyllic setting, on a hilltop overlooking the winding Tweed River, lush farmlands below and with the mountains as a backdrop. The view reminded me so much of the Kwa Zulu Natal midlands in South Africa.

The Gallery was originally built alongside the river in 1923 moved to its present location in 2004. A  modern gallery creates wonderful exhibition spaces.Narrow windows frame the spectacular views connecting the landscape to the interior.

The Gallery was packed with people – we wondered why there was such a crowd but put the crush down to the popularity of the exhibition. Then we realised that it was the last day before the Archibald moved on to another regional location, the Moree Plains Gallery.

Photography was not allowed in the exhibition so please click on the links to see images of the paintings.There were 800 entries in this year’s competition, from which 41 paintings  were selected. There’s a wide range of styles, media and sizes from the huge – Ben Quilty’s winning entry of Margaret Olley to the minute. The self portrait, October by Natasha Bieniek is the size of a matchbox - evidence that bigger is not always better.

An unusual mix of watercolour, gouache, acrylic and ink was used on a large canvas for a portrait entitled Mother (a portrait of Cate) by Del Kathryn Barton a previous prize winner.

This video clip of the Exhibition shows some of the work being readied for judging. It gives both an idea of scale as well as an interview with the winning artist. Quilty’s portrait of Margaret Olley shows wonderful handling of very thick oil paint – he says so much with so few absolutely perfectly placed paint-laden strokes. Parts of the face remain bare canvas - there’s no fiddling with paint here – just bold, dramatic application, so thick in parts you feel that it’s going to fall off the canvas. It’s a worthy winner and a wonderful homage to Olley who died in July 2011.

A year of Art Matters



Flowers in a bucket - oil on canvas Carol Lee Beckx © 2011

It’s almost a year since I started writing Art Matters with the first post - A new beginning. During the time I was packing up my life in South Africa in preparation for my move here to Brisbane, putting pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard) helped me express myself when there were times that I couldn’t paint.

It’s been an eventful year. I de-cluttered and sorted and bid farewell to family and friends. In December I started life in a new country and new city. I shared the traumatic effect on Queensland of the January floods followed later by the devastation of Cyclone Yasi.

Gradually life returned to normal. I found my way around the city and made new friends.  I love having wonderful art galleries in the city to visit. Moving into my own home a couple of months ago reunited me with my belongings and I was able to start teaching. I love the interaction with those in my art groups and it’s rewarding to see their progress after just a few short weeks.

When I began blogging I had no idea who would be interested in reading my musings about art and life. At first I knew so little I wasn’t aware how to access the blog’s statistics! It’s therefore quite gratifying to see that I have readers from a number of different places across the world from Russia to Ecuador, USA, Germany, South Africa and Australia. My thanks to everyone who has stopped by, your interest is much appreciated.

While designing my website I discovered some wonderful artist’s blogs. I have learnt so much from looking at other artist’s paintings and seeing how they approach their art practice. There is a raft of painters doing a Daily Painting and posting every day without fail. Regular readers might remember I tried that back in January – this was a flash in the pan and then life got in the way. It was really difficult if not impossible for me to paint something worthwhile, photograph or scan it and post every single day. I have great admiration for those who manage this while maintaining a high standard.

An artist who succeeds is Julian Merrow-Smith - Postcard form Provence. He has been doing an average of five paintings a week since 2005. Each morning I enjoy the fresh delight of a new painting in my inbox.

Another blog that is well written and entertaining is Life and art – working through the absurdity of life. Gillian Holding is both an accomplished artist and writer. She also posts a daily digital self-portrait in  A Daily self- reflection - showing both talent and staying power.

Liz Steel is does the most wonderful sketches and her travel notebooks are an inspiration - her blog is Liz and Borromini.Katherine Tyrrell's Making a Mark , one of the top art blogs is a must read for artists.

 

There have been a number of artists who have confessed lately that daily posting is intrusive and disruptive to their development as an artist. This happens when the deadline becomes insistent and there’s no time for reflection, planning and self-assessment as an artist. The other problems with daily painting and blogging is that unless one is extremely imaginative the work will become repetitive and of indifferent quality.

The more I paint the less time I have to write. My solution is to write and post only when I have something to say. Unfortunately the intermittant nature of posting means that readers may forget you.

So please don’t forget the solution - sign up for an email subscription and you will know when there is a new post - and please do leave a comment every now and again - bloggers love to get feedback from their readers.

Now – I’m off to do a little more painting…

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.