ELEMENTAL

Elemental Oil on linen 50 x 95 cm 2009

In this new painting above I have tried to capture the essences of earth, air and water. I have used my much loved tree-of-life to suggest a vascular energy within what appears to be an ambiguous landscape. The vibrant red 'clouds' spill red and blue 'rain', both woven into the fabric of the 'sky' in a startling pattern. I like the idea of a sky revealing its elemental energy normally unseen by the naked human eye of eye ball and pupil. My mind's eye always 'sees' the normally unseen. To wonder is the spark which ignites the imagination. Maybe viewers who look at my work will wonder and come up with their own mind's eye 'sights'? As I have written before on this BLOG I do not believe I complete my paintings, because I know every conversation a painting stumulates, whether with others or with oneself, provides a completion. Hence there is the possibility of multiple completions.

In a way I have to distance myself from my work ...and I am comfortable with this. I also believe that by distancing myself from 'owning' a completion, I just might save my work from the perils of didacticism. One of these perils is the blinding of the mind's eye and thus the death of wonder. I have previously writen about wonder @ http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/03/after-couple-of-weeks-not-painting-i-am.html

I chose red for the clouds and the strips of 'rain' to indicate a potency, not just in the obvious benefits of rain and water to the Earth and its inhabitants, but also in the rich metaphor water provides for us. This is where my interest in the vast/intimate-global/local-macro/micro enters the painting. Water has an ability to exist in a vast mass, but also to be reduced to droplets, mist, steam. It can seep into intimate spaces where space does not seem to obviously exist. It flows and its 'currency' is a metaphor for concepts of movement and progression, but also value in all of its conotations. I believe fluidity is an important aspect of perspective in this increasingly globalised world in which we live locally.

I have written about the many meanings of 'currency' before on this BLOG @ http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/03/currency.html and http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/06/currency-of-water.html

I'd like to direct readers to a few interesting Blogs or websites I have discovered recently

http://www.mandyridley.com/ http://www.spillspace.com/ http://www.ducksmahal.com/ http://www.moneyplusthoughts.blogspot.com/

Cheers, Kathryn

ONE

                              One oil on linen 90 x 200 cm 2009
This is the painting I have been working on for the last couple of months and now it is ready for the conversations which will provide its [possible] multiple completions. I have decided to call the painting 'One'. I wanted to create a work which simultaneously captured vastness and intimacy through revealed patterns. I have used the tree-of-life motife to create a 'map' which illustrates connectivity within difference ie: the connectivity being fundamental similarities which underly life [which includes death].

An article in The Guardian newspaper entitled 'Can Artists Save The World', by Paul Arendt struck me as timely. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/05/can-artists-save-the-world The article discusses the plethora of art, in the broadest sense, which deals with 'issues' such as the environment and climate change. He says, 'Artists' attempts tend to fall into two categories. There is the celebratory work reminding us how nice nature is; and there is the dystopian approach, which paints a stark picture of humanity's future.'


I have thought about this question of 'issue' driven art for awhile. Readers of my BLOG would recognise that at one level I am a quiet activist, but I am very careful to steer well clear of the didacticism I perceive in a lot of contemporary culture. For example I do not see the point in recreating or reminding people of disaster when the popular media does such a great job at it. Some contemporary art is trapped in an unwitting complicity with the popular media which stalls art's potential potency to penetrate the psyche at deep levels. Some of this 'dystopian' imagery falls prey to 'black' decor desires, and thus propels itself to what is considered the unforgivable fate of the 'pretty picture' ie: decoration!

I have written on this BLOG before about my thoughts on 'positive or celebratory' art. All may not be as it seems! Modern aptitudes in deciphering symbols, meaning and context are scarily limited especially as visual literacy skills are determined or honed by mass media and didacticism [especially in a lot of children's literature]. I am aware that there is a 'pretty picture' element in the artworld. However, I choose to paint what could be called utopian images, but with a conscious acknowledgement that disaster, pain, suffering exist or are all immanent. By consciously eliding the negative, it exists in absentia in my work.

'Reminding us how nice nature is...' is not my goal. Simple 'reminder' is not effective or potent because it does not necessarily cause change either within or without. I hope my work engenders, through the conversations it stimulates with oneself or others, a potential for discovery of something new. As readers of my BLOG are aware, I am intensely interested in perspective especially as a metaphor for how we view ourselves and others. The possibility of finding new perspectives and/or experiencing multiple perspectives simultaneously are far more exciting... and scarey than simple 'reminder'. Living locally in an increasingly globalised world is also exciting and scarey....but heightened perspectival abilities will make the dance of distance between the global and local far more fun and productive.

Can artists save the world? No artists alone cannot save the world, but maybe art's agency can contribute to the collective endeavour through stimulating the kind of wonder and imagination that uncovers new ways of doing things. Where does 'reminder' of good or bad fit here?

Now to my MUM, Elsie Brimblecombe who is having a solo exhibition called 'Invisible Cities' inspired by Italo Calvino's book by the same name. The exhibition will be at the Upfront Club, 31 Maple St, Maleny, Queensland, Australia opening August 27 @ 6 pm. The exhibition will continue until September 22. http://www.upfrontclub.org/

Below is one of my Mum's paintings The City of Euphemia. It is acrylic on canvas and about 60 x 40 cm.