The Yin and Yang of the Art World

Do landscapes sell? Are art buyers/lovers really interested in the landscape?

It's amazing every day, no matter where or what I go or do, I find people with differing points of view especially about the art world. I guess, really, everyone's experience is so different, so diverse, that we each have to make up our own mind in the long run.

So just thinking it through today, I realise that in my life I have over 700 paintings of the landscape hanging on people's walls and in their offices all over Australia, the US, China, Japan and various other countries throughout the world. My lifetime has been spent pursuing the essence of landscape through colour, shape, intricacy, abstraction and a variety of techniques and materials. Just this week, I have completed several pieces both large and small, and as I view my studio, there's not much in stock..... so the landscape must still be a winner for many collectors - at least in my experience!

So what do you think? Here's my latest work titled "The Ancient Ones" inspired by the many ancient rocks that continue to erode out into the Australian landscape wherever you go..... they can be found in all sorts of places but it's the remote ones I love the best! In an arid landscape, there's nothing quite like coming across a pile of massive boulders! They provide shade, colour and form, beautiful washes of colour, and they 'talk' to you! They tell the story of our fabulous place - our home - Australia!

When I look, I see maybe a couple of female figures laying in repose, maybe discussing 'life' as time passes by..... what do you see?

More on my website!

It doesn't matter what you paint, just continue to follow your heart, eyes and soul and keep painting - "Let it flow and let it go!" (Joy Warren of Solander Gallery in 2011) Thank you Joy for that timely advice. I needed to hear it then and I keep repeating it to myself each day.....

Have a happy painting day and remember, even when sales are slow, it's time to catch up on all those images that are waiting dormant waiting to be born!

Ruminations of a frustrated artist!

You know the saying "Just do it!" Such wise words, so hard to follow but today I did! I did it!

I think finding this website "The Flinty Hard Road" and reading it made so much sense to me and brought me back to the place where I know I'm not alone..... the arts is a hard career choice.... probably the hardest! I really related to the heading "Fabulously successful, penniless and deranged" particularly the 'deranged' bit!

Lately I've been well, let's say "occupied" but today, I bit the bullet and "just did it!" and boy does it feel good. I went to the studio and prepared all those canvases that have been patiently waiting for me. There they are now, all virginal white, covered in that clean clear pure pristine coat of gesso. They wait for me now to pour forth all my energies onto them..... sigh! What a good day's work!

The weekend saw another exhibition of works open to an assembled throng of art lovers, purveyors of fine art and wine, some really decent and genuine people amongst them..... the wallets remained firmly locked and who can blame them for today's economy sees most people worrying about their retirement plans as their super funds vaporise before their disbelieving eyes. Not so for us artists, we don't have the luxury of retirement plans. We'll be painting until we're blind and hanging around hopefully for a sale.

But we do have the luxury of filling our lives and walls with wonderful art that others can only dream about! Not for us, those dreary prints and commercial crappy decorator pieces, don't they make you cringe!

 At least 3 people promised to buy work.... ah that's nice and I remind myself that despite the current downturn this year, I have had some sales and offers that other artists would be glad to have.

So to get into the studio today and back to my virginal white canvases was a joy! My mind started to focus immediately as I imagined the images starting to appear. I could feel the paints calling to me from their tubes to squeeze them and spread them luxuriously across each virgin in turn. Ah what a pleasant day!

It's going to be good year after all! There's so much to do and so much opportunity lying right here at the doorstep.... it reminds me that "everything you need, is right there in front of you!" So watch this space as the year rolls on.....

"Flooding of Twin Lakes" Oil on Canvas

Here's one that I would like to see painted up into a large work...... hmmm.....

So keep painting out there!

"The Eye of the Eagle"

 "Gorge and engorged" 68 cm x 48 cm Mixed Media on D'Arches

This recent month has seen me hard at work in my studio imagining flying over the deserts of Central Australia as an eagle and then putting this down on paper. I was amazed whilst reading up on eagles and how they see, to learn that they have pentachromatic vision (we have tetrachromatic). Eagles can see ultraviolet and infrared colours - so Wow!

Pondering the complexity of this, I felt that they saw far more brightly than we did and so I pushed a few colours round in Photoshop to see what effects I could get. All this dreaming and fiddling around has led to very colourful exhibition indeed. At first I found it too much but as I settled into it, the paintings burned into my soul and I now feel quite at home with them and their intense colours.

Why eagles and why now? Firstly, recent heatwaves have crossed the country leaving it bare and exposed, dry and parched. Daily reminders of the planet getting hotter, have left me wondering once again about Climate Change; is it real, why does it happen and what does it mean?

I don't have answers to this although I find it extraordinarily fascinating......like most of us I believe.

Australia is the driest and harshest continent on the planet with the most ancient and exposed soils. Millions of years have passed and former mountains have eroded down into floodplains and deserts. These cover over 90 % of Australia. The colours when viewed from a plane, are bright reds, oranges and yellows with tracks and dry river beds crisscrossing the land.

Secondly, I feel, if we could read the land, if we could understand the patterns and their meanings, then just maybe we could learn to live with the earth successfully. We could stop building cities on fertile lands and fields, we could build for temperature and climate changes, we could do things better. It's true we've survived for almost 5 million years but the recent upswing in our skills has hurt the planet more than ever before and now we worry about our own survival as a species for probably the first time ever in our history.

I have painted these paintings from a deep part of myself that yearns for a greener place, a safer place but at the same time is amazed and drawn to the wondrous colours of the earth.

Australia may be the oldest and most exposed place right now, but believe me, it's where other countries are headed over the next few thousands of years as the glaciers dry up and and the mountains erode down to floodplains and deserts. Look at this place, Australia and learn for this is where you are headed. It is not a country that can sustain many more people than it currently does......it is not the lucky country it once was.......and we will need to move whole towns and populations as the heat increases and the desert continues to grow ever larger.

There is no doubt in my mind that human activity here in this 'sacred' place has exacerbated the rate of desertification. The ripping out of whole forests, the ploughing and chemical spraying of large tracks of land, the channeling of water away from floodplains and marshlands continues today despite the warnings written already in our land and able to be seen by the eagles looking for their old hunting grounds.

Try looking at the earth through 'the eye of the eagle'!

The exhibition can be seen at Jayes Gallery in Molong NSW from 5 February to 7 March or online closer to that date.

"Under Autumn Skies" - Exhibition a Success!

Hi everyone

and thank you to all of you that came to the opening on Sunday last! It was a beautiful day out at Molong and we all enjoyed each others company......

For photos of the event, go to Phil, the rampant photographer's site at lookaround.com.au/joy

It's great to have Phil around at these events! Some nice close ups of the techniques in the paintings as well.....

cyu again!

nJoy