H2O OCEAN SEA HARBOUR COVE
SEA
The initial theme of the series was the colour blue and water. At the heart of each painting is an abstract landscape viewed from a boat across the water to the coastline. Along the way and upon reflection each painting added to the story of man’s relationship with and how we live by the water.
We anchored on islands, down creeks and beside beaches where nobody goes, impossible to get to other than by boat, where nature is huge, wild, untamed. You begin to feel very small and start to live simply, and you begin to notice the smallest things. As everything is designed and informed by mathematics, so nature organises itself in pure geometric forms.
Repetition of shape and form is everywhere: from the way the tide recedes; cracks and fissures in rocks, repetitive tangles of jungle, and the roots of mangrove trees.
On Curlew Island, two sailing days east of Mackay the tides are amongst the highest variation on the Eastern Coast (of Australia), sand bars revealed tidal pools with regulated patterns of triangles.
These and other forms and lines began to emerge in the paintings.
I played with thick opaque whites in the under layers and then broke up the areas into geometric forms. Transparent glazes of blues and yellows were layered to capture the drama and separation of land and sea seen from the perspective of a tiny boat looking back to land. These areas of highly glazed colour feel almost “poured” into jug-like vessels such as tea pots or vases.
Presenting the landscape as a series of geometric planes is a metaphor for man’s ongoing attempts to tame and control nature. I added very simple child-like shapes and colours to suggest how small we humans are within the greater scheme of nature.
INSPIRATION
Water and the Colour Blue
“Space Walk” by Lemon Jelly (listened to at night under the stars)
Islands, headlands around The Whitsundays
Beaches and bush of Noosa National Park
Jungle habitat from Palm Islands to the Daintree and all the islands in between