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Critical Frameworks A Assignment 2 Online Dossier of Artists Edward Brook s3510898

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This dossier refers to four main topics: 1) Landscape 2) Abstraction vs. Figuration 3) Trying to paint everything 4) Contradictions.

We are all a consciousness in a landscape. Abstraction is more useful than figuration in depicting this as figuration is too contained. You can only contain so much in a ‘figure’ and ‘landscape’. Although people may think they ‘understand’ a figurative work more than an abstraction, this can simply be because it’s easier to interact with a figurative work over an abstraction. A person can think they understood a figurative work because it’s figurative, but get it wrong. Likewise, they can think they’ve misunderstood an abstraction, but be spot on. A consciousness is complex, so is a landscape, despite what urban dwellers may think. In fact, the complexity of the entire world, everything else that lives, an entire universe can be argued to be more complex than a human. The complexity of the world is often missed, or misunderstood, and this is a perfect time to be practicing ‘landscape’ painting. Despite assertions they we’re ‘passed it’ in the West. It’s pretty obvious we’ve forgotten landscape. If we’d remembered it, we wouldn’t have destroyed it. Our consciousnesses are also full of contradictions and inadequacies. Desires, urges, faults. It is only through accepting these deficiencies, i.e., accepting ourselves, that we can grow. And perhaps begin to respect the world around us rather than try vainly to convince ourselves that we’re free from responsibility.  

Trying to paint everything is hard. Figuration and traditional landscape does not cut it. Some level of abstraction is the only way to express what is at best an abstraction (reduction) of what is around us. Just like Drysdale, I paint in a time where the ‘rural setting’ is actively discouraged (Heathcote, 2013). But it is this ‘rural setting’, i.e. an entire continent, that we rely on to live. Dirt, and water. We’re not past this. If we do end up passed it, if we separate from agriculture and return the land to bush, I might accept a city mentality more so. But only in so far as we’ve removed most of the consequence of ourselves. I’ll still prefer the bush. Until then, don’t tell me there’s nothing outside of a city. When there’s everything, an entire universe, that isn’t human. Maybe that’s why we like to huddle and walk all over each other. Human exceptionalism only exists in a human world.

Russell Drysdale: defining the modern Australian landscape Christopher Heathcote (Heathcote, 2013)

First one to look at interior, go there, take notes draw, come back and paint (Heathcote, 2013).

Property Riverina boxwood park, youth jackarooing, not just farmer turned artist (Heathcote, 2013).

Modern art Australia at the time, reject rural subject matter, must by definition be opposed to rural landscape, e.g. angry penguins social realists (Heathcote, 2013).

Man reading a newspaper, man feeding his dogs, landscape is summary abbreviation not specific place, not recording a view, synthesised from props organised on flat bare earth runs to close horizon, sinewy hillbillies (Heathcote, 2013).

Response:

It’s Drysdale’s ability to render landscape as an abbreviation rather than a pictorial representation which is most relevant. People may describe his work as ‘realistic’ or ‘surrealistic’ but this isn’t what it is. He’s discovered a language to express the landscape how he saw it and felt it. Neither real nor surreal is accurate. This an expression of landscape and those within it, whether out of place and probably destructive or in it.   

NSW drought, Darling River, erosion, over stocking, poor land management, sand dunes coming to the river (Heathcote, 2013).

Ink drawings bush folk farms with shanty buildings, wash and water colour sketches landscapes, some evocative tree forms, abstracting these masses conveys pained and wounded country, famers ground down by adversity, ghastly sight but motifs he could use in the landscape, motifs he had been searching for (Heathcote, 2013).

Signature motifs kept reoccurring - monotonous planar landscape, windswept desert offers little cover, dust storms, burnt out ruins and machines, gruesome human remains (Heathcote, 2013).

Wherever we look bad farming and reckless mining- road with rocks - overgrazed, excessively cleared and infested with rabbits, soil washed away severe erosion deep gullies, decay through misuse degradation, not fertile abundance, emaciated trees clinging to life (Heathcote, 2013).

Response:

His bleaker works are in reference to the war, but regardless of that he painted a mostly inhospitable, or difficult to live in landscape poorly managed by guileless whites. It isn’t hard to mismanage landscape, seen at a scale only those who’ve been there can understand. There are many wasted landscapes in Australia. Fortunately, now most farmers are interested in reversing this both environmentally and economically. But there’s both a lot that can be done and not much. City dwellers complain and pine about the effects on ‘the bush’ from farming, without accepting they’re complicit in it. Mouths need to be fed. There’s better ways of doing it but at the end of the day there is no way to farm without having an impact. This is something society seems to have trouble with.  

People made to live in the margin- figure posed before landscape, silent aboriginal standing within country- same palette figures and rocks (Heathcote, 2013)

Response:

If you’re painting someone connected to landscape you paint them in it, not separate.

Fair weather – Murray bail (Bail, 1994)

Fair weather used abstraction to speak of experience beyond the experience of art itself (Bail, 1994).

From this vague zone comes the natural but difficult power of abstract art (Bail, 1994).

Response:

This begins an extended discussion on the point of abstraction. Abstract art seems to come from somewhere else. A ‘deep’ or ‘personal’ or non logical non conscious place that seems to operate mostly pre linguistically, but language is still a part of it. So, what’s the use? Most things about human experience can’t readily translate into language. Think about happiness, it’s difficult to describe what happiness feels like. Let alone despair. But this is grazing the surface. Abstraction allows an artist to delve into parts of their mind outside of the didactic and logical. ‘Figurative’ work cannot contain what can be expressed in abstraction as everything has to be contained in a figure. What you’re left with is just a body expressing itself, not a consciousness. In this way ‘figurative’ work can be extremely limiting.

We are not expected to fathom an abstract painting, gaining something from the general aura is enough (Bail, 1994).

Every abstraction not only private, but a congested complexity which discourages meaningful entry (Bail, 1994).

When nothing is there for viewers to recognise and compare, they exist as separate creations, admired for inaccessibility, which has its own difficult beauty (Bail, 1994).

Response:

This is the main issue with abstraction. People do not see the world, their landscape, in an abstract way. Our everyday life is filled with exteriors and interiors. A screenplay usually only contains ext. or int. Abstraction can be difficult or even incomprehensible for someone if it is too irretrievable. This is why I’ve moved from complete abstraction to ‘figurative abstraction’. I want to give people enough to identify with, then they can go from there. I make art for what I call real people, the people I bump into at the pub or down the street. Not the art world or artists.

Ian Fairweather -  “The hardest for me has been the passing of painting as we thought of it in the west. The only things worth looking at these days are the abstracts. I have fought against them feeling that art was losing its roots, that they were throwing out the baby with the bath water. I am beginning to see that I was wrong in that too” (Bail, 1994).

Fred Williams an Australian Vision Zdanowicz coppel (Zdanowicz, 2003)

A vision of landscape so powerful that it flowed back from representation to subject itself (Zdanowicz, 2003).

The hawthorn studio has impact on paintings, size he could now expand, stylistic shifts that occurred by opportunity to stand back from pictures, allowing details to configure from distance (Zdanowicz, 2003).

Prominent motif you yangs. Unique visual language of marks to describe his perception landscape. Monotony,  absence of focal points, motifs and spur he needed (Zdanowicz, 2003).

Always considered a composition every possible angle, inserting horizon line where it didn’t exist (Zdanowicz, 2003).

permutations seemed endless especially in prints, potentially infinite variations on themes (Zdanowicz, 2003).

Response:

It’s mainly the vision of landscape that moves us from representational the subject itself that I’m interested in. William’s also spent a lifetime figuring out a visual language to properly describe the landscape around him, but he is unique in making it the subject itself. This is difficult to do, to make a landscape a subject. Most humans can’t do this hence climate change and particularly mass ecosystem destruction. We are not that good at true empathy, too caught up in our selves. The You Yangs 1962 paintings are the best example of this, as well as Red Landscape 1965.

It’s difficult to work out how he’s made the landscape communicate with the viewer. Rover Thomas is another good example of this. Is it the colour? A big swathe of red doesn’t necessarily communicate anything. Or is it the scratches? Little scratch marks depicting rocks and vegetation. What it could be is Fred being able to properly immerse himself in the landscape, so what comes through is not just him, or his ‘view’ of things, but the landscape talking with him. Trying to get us lot to listen. The more aerial stuff seems to work better to. Not full aerial, but more aerial. It’s not our perspective so maybe we can’t fool ourselves.  

End of 1970 wants change of direction, no idea what form it will take (Zdanowicz, 2003).

Ideas began to germinate late 60s began to think about colour, colours of landscape astonished him first visited outback October 67. Pure sulphur and lilac one day, violet, orange oxide green two days later (Zdanowicz, 2003).

79 visited Pilbara with Rod Carnegie. Fred Williams – “Anyone who could not paint this particular country is probably in the wrong profession” (Zdanowicz, 2003).  

Compositional monumentality both inventive and simple pure colours accurately convey the region’s searing clarity of light while retaining independent chromatic values - Red Landscape 1965 (Zdanowicz, 2003).

Utopia: the genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye (Australia, 2008)

Her visual theory was awelye, not theory, modern art critics (Australia, 2008).

Subject alhalkere not universal concept of spirituality nor references global issues, which tended to occupy contemporary artists (Australia, 2008).

Palette not determined by artist’s emotional index but changing seasons(Australia, 2008).

Greens  appear after rain - after rain 1990 (Australia, 2008).

Wildflowers carpet desert yellows appear - summer awelye I 1991 (Australia, 2008).

Response:

Emily didn’t need or want the modern art world or contemporary art or even contemporary global discourse to paint. She sat in the bush and painted everything around her and herself in it. With no separation between anything. There’s a lot to this, many questions. Just how useful is contemporary art dialogue, or all the noise that goes on around one finding one’s art. I see myself a lot like her. I try to maintain a continuous connection to what sustains me. And I consider myself to be largely inseparable from what’s around me. This is where my art comes from. It is nothing more than an identity surviving noise, and a consciousness in a landscape. That’s what we all are. But many are lost.

Big Yam Dreaming 1996

Continual connection place meaning evident big yam dreaming 1996 (Australia, 2008)

Completed 2 days sat cross legged painted her way to edges, ‘knitting’ one section onto another (Australia, 2008)

Emily Kame – “Whole lot, that’s whole lot. Awelye (my dreaming). Arlatyeye (pencil yam). Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard). (Ntange grass seed). Tingu (Dreamtime pup). Ankerre (emu). Intekwe (favourite food of emu). Atnwerle (green bean).And kame (yam seed). That’s what I paint a whole lot (Australia, 2008).

Totality of her existence expressed as dreaming (Australia, 2008).

Australian Abstract Amber Cresswell Bell (Bell, 2023)

Suzanne Archer (Bell, 2023a)

Responds to large scale of works, physicality of act. Susanne Archer – “To leap about use my body with energy like a dancer” (Bell, 2023a).

Work has moved between abstraction and more pictorially referential, thematic work as abstract, their source more apparent in their imagery (Bell, 2023a).

A lot of the time ouevre evokes own narrative emerges and communicates to her over days as she engages with process (Bell, 2023a).

Work multi layered, in artists opinion best at large scale (Bell, 2023a).

Recent paintings introduced disparate images that might seem strange, put incongruous elements together in paintings not to over burden work, provide disruption to composition enlivening reading of painting(Bell, 2023a).

often start random marks to get canvas active, then have dialogue with story as it evolves, may continue 4 days, generally 4-5 hours a day (Bell, 2023a).

Response:

This is included mainly to discuss scale and process. I also work at scale, to contain a landscape something needs to be big, and I use my whole body to paint. I start with some sort of mark be it colour or a sketch to get things going, then spend about 5 days for a few hours each day seeing what comes through. The placement of incongruous elements or aspects of a painting that seem out of place with others is useful as it forces a question. Creates some intrigues or draws a person in to explore more of the painting.

Aida Tomescu (Bell, 2023b)

Less convinced distinctions between abstraction and figuration (Bell, 2023b).

Aida Tomescu – “I see abstraction everywhere in great figurative painting from cezanne to Titian, Giotto and before. I regard it as a language not a genre. It is communicative tool, one I have always aspired to have greater fluency and clarity in (Bell, 2023b).

Resists compartmentalising what she does, views genres as forming the great examples of her training, but echoes sentiments Mondrian, who said even without knowing an artist is forced toward abstraction (Bell, 2023b).

One of best things about abstraction is ideas, subjects, themes move fluently from one place to another, leading to new configurations (Bell, 2023b).

With its own internal reasoning, own rules indestructible logic (Bell, 2023b).

Good painting depends on transitions, not on fixed form (Bell, 2023b).

Response:

Like Aida I’m concerned with from and structure, but also figuration. There is little difference between abstraction and figuration. Figuration is effectively less abstract abstraction. There is a fluidity and reasoning to abstraction, in fact a strong reasoning to abstraction that many people consider isn’t there. It has its own logic, it’s just not the logic of ‘this is a landscape’ and ‘this is a figure’. Often in abstraction things are indivisible, which is a far more accurate rendition of everything than a figure separate in landscape. A fluid and dynamic approach to painting renders things more accurate, as the process itself renders life itself rather than a version of it.

Oscar Murillo Anna Schneider (Schneider, 2018).

Oscar Murillo – “That feeling, being weighed down by the knowledge of a dead body on the plane. Plus, long standing fascination with flying, is epitomised in the black work canvases. On personal level it manifests whole experience in an abstract way. It’s what that family feels grieving death… When the flight reaches Turkey it’s abstraction because you’re 36000 feet in air” (Schneider, 2018).

Oscar Murillo – “We all carry weight, one way or another. It’s important that work be abstract, so a person has the chance to project whatever they want, see what they see” (Schneider, 2018).

Response:

Oscar Murillo’s Black Canvas series appears to be in response to a flight he was on where a body was being transported in the plane. He talks of a ‘heavy’ feeling knowing the body was there, and the abstraction of flying in general, where particularly at night it can difficult to figure out where one is (Schneider, 2018). But it is mainly around the choice of black and abstraction that it interesting. Murillo has said he has done this so people can project onto the canvas whatever they want.

Oscar Murillo Dis Place 2016

Sally Gabori Land of all Queensland Art Gallery Bruce McLean (Gabori, 2016).

Places and people inseparable. Kaiadit tradition naming people through association place totem one born into. Mirdidingkingathi juwarnda -  dolphin person born at mirdidinki (Gabori, 2016).

She painted six key places hundreds of time, in each landscape cues to be found (Gabori, 2016).

Overwhelming majority paintings focus one theme and place, dibirdibi country, paintings much more expansive draw on broader range experiences than other work (Gabori, 2016).

Sally Gabori – “This is my land, this is my sea, this is who I am” (Gabori, 2016).

She spoke little English, painting a new language for her. Unable to connect with outer world with her dying tongue she invited us into world we wouldn’t have seen (Gabori, 2016).

But she was not engaging with audience. She was communicating with her land and family (Gabori, 2016).

Response:

There are two thing about Sally Gabori that are compelling. 1) people and places were indivisible to her (Gabori, 2016) 2) she painted the same places hundreds of times, like Emily Kame. The place changing and shifting and feeding her work (Gabori, 2016) 3) painting was a language she used to communicate her country to outsiders as she didn’t speak much English (Gabori, 2016).

Paint the same place, or the same ‘idea’ as it might be described, falls in line with conversations about Emily Kame. Why is it in the West we are so obsessed with ‘ideas’, and their relevance to art. I know where my art comes from, I know what it’s about. Do I have to continuously shift my ‘thinking’, or get better at depicting it.

I use painting to describe things that are almost impossible to describe in language. My inherent feeling of connectedness, even kinship with what’s around me. My consciousness simply existing in a landscape. At this time is history there is something to be said for doubling down and showing people that they are still connected to landscape, and to keep telling them that.

Tony tuckson Art Gallery New South Wales Denise Mimmocchi (Mimmocchi & Tuckson, 2018)

Untitled 1973 - meaning of painting - Tony Tuckson fixated on the motion of curtains with the doors open (Mimmocchi & Tuckson, 2018).

Tony Tuckson - “It’s about this, and everything out there” (Mimmocchi & Tuckson, 2018).

Saying paintings of everything out there, sought something immense, unnameable. Might be referred to as infinite (Mimmocchi & Tuckson, 2018).  

Drive to transform defining feature practice. Fundamental adherence to the artistic embodiment energy, energy of gesture, line, colour and light, natural world, psyche. Ceaseless vital questioning how these values might be expressed in work (Mimmocchi & Tuckson, 2018).

Response:

Tony Tuckson painted ‘everything out there’, he seems to have said after staring at some curtains moving in a breeze. How do you do this? White lines (vertical) on ultramarine is as good as any an example to consider. Like Fred Williams, there is an astonishing simplicity to this work and others like it. There seems to be a need to keep things simple to express ‘everything out there’. Which is contradictory. Everything out there is incredibly complex but possibly our relationship to it is simple. You don’t have to ‘understand’ nature to respect it. You don’t have to speak wombat to leave one alone. Our relationship to everything out there is in fact simple. It’s about connectivity. That connectivity is all we need to respect everything that lives and doesn’t. And yet, more and more, people are disconnected. Artists are no different, in fact they can the worst of the bunch.  

George Condo Mental States (Condo, 2011)

Our capacity accommodate contradiction allows us tolerate difference in ourselves and others (Condo, 2011).

To understand unfamiliar values, passions; empathy of this kind requires us to leave the sanctuary of liberal reason, grasp its marginal place in world driven by impassioned belief, desire and self interest. Thus is the invitation of Condo’s tragic comic art (Condo, 2011).

To chart our place in a universe where reason according to Deleuze is a region carved out of the irrational, not sheltered from it but traversed by it (Condo, 2011).  

Response:

It is Condo’s ability to contain inherent contradiction, not in a surrealist way, but in a simultaneous existing way, that is the strength of his work. People don’t seem good at accepting contradiction, or hypocrisy, or fallibility, in themselves. More so now with the bubble of social media and tailored news. This society, in many ways, is becoming more intolerant of difference than accepting. Think of how ‘the left’ talks of ‘the right’, in shockingly dehumanising ways, or vice versa. We are all a contradiction, we are all hypocrites, we are nice, and not nice, we are all giving and selfish. Given the state of affairs I find it intolerable how unwilling humanity is to questioning itself, critically. We are far from perfect, and yet most of the dialogue around humans is how good we are. Tell that to half of all living things that are now dead. If condo can get people to accept themselves, then good. Better than lying to yourself your whole life.

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