Always exciting to set up a new studio, and for it to be in the centre of my new semi-retired life, living in this beautiful community at Ōtaki beach. I love the country feel, mana, pace, warmth, and beauty of this town. My studio this time in our double garage, but I have had to carve off some shed/tool space but that's ok. Loving the indoor / outdoor flow - will be so handy to be able to make the big messes outside, and to move large things around. It's my 10th studio and first time in a garage. Just had power put on so all go now.
Setting up a new studio is easy and so enjoyable, love all the clean whiteness and I get really carried away thinking about all the potential of the all the new work I'm going to make/paint. Once it's set up it's back to the reality of how challenging and mostly hard a creative pursuit is. I've had the opportunity to unpack stuff from storage that I've kept over 30 years - all my studio workbooks. Reading through them is highly motivating, the really creative stages leap out, sometimes by absence of writing - it's all the painting - and sometimes by my writing about joy and my passion for paint. Then there's all the angsting, about am I any good at all? Why paint? There's probably too many ( incredible!) paintings in this world, and way too many things. Then my husband reminds me - but you are so happy when you paint. And I know it's true - that flow, the integration of everything in my life, everything I think and feel all coming together, the physically and the making of something out of nothing - I'm constantly astonished that things manifest from nothing.
0 Comments
Some of this work was begun 2 years ago, and when I picked it up again and looked at it I could see it was calling out to me to add more complexity. Again I am in such ambiguous turf - mountains, seas, icebergs, vessels, boats, rising and falling horizons, water rising and falling. I am thinking 'hard-edge abstraction' and also how dire is climate changing, islands to disappear, icebergs melting.
Ambiguity first appeared as a theme in my work at art school. in the lates early 90's. The combing series of my last 20 years is all about the ambiguity of figure and ground. It's like I want my work to be super cagey, so it can't be pinned down, boxed, categorised, treading between abstraction and figuration. The work below is small - A5 - so different for me to sit, look down onto a table top, instead of standing, swinging my arms around and pressing hard against walls. So good to feel like combing some new work, it feels like the never ending unfinished project, like going home. I haven't really allowed myself to work in serveral consecutive bodies of work and it feels like such a freedon - to just do the mood, and switch, from small, intense, colourful. free, works to monochromatic structured work. I love apricot - running throught all this work.
Realy followed my mood for a fresh start...back in the city and a urge for colour, expansiveness, transparent layers, brightness! Hard to resist my combing tools, and still like to 'sweep' . This work is hanging in my home in Lyall Bay and can be viewed there. Untitled (2023) 150 x 150mm, mixed media Sweeper (2023) 1500 x 1200mm Voila (2023) 1500 x 1200mm Kizbam (2023) 1500 x 1200mm
Had a show of my paintings at beautiful Webb's Gallery in Wellington. These works have been well shown now and have gone to some homes. Lovely Florence 'my charge' keeps me inspired.
Lovely to have the opportunity to show in Wellington and connect back into an art community here. Here's some snaps from my opening at Rice Pudding Gallery, in fabulous Newtown. These works have been in storage in Gallery vaults and I have just got them returned, like old friends visiting! Ideal to be able to give a new outing time and context.
...and a group show after being back only a few months. I was delighted to be invited to join a group show in a new gallery in town 'Rice Pudding'.
So great to be back home in Lyall Bay in our Californian Bungalow - so lucky and appreciating Wellington, it's compactness and variety, and mains electricity after 5 years off the grid!. The first couple of months was spent working to restore our home and garden while I also slowly set up my studio and thought hard about my practice. I did a really big review of work from 2008 until now and evaluated what I though was my best work. It was an exciting process and I could see so much more that I havern't done that seems like clear directions and potentialities. So it's fully back to being in my studio - my happy place, and a centre to process what's going on.
|
Kia ora Archives
February 2025
Categories
All
|