CLOSE AND FAR DISTANCE

                                                              Oil on linen 80 x 150 cm

I am in a quandary. I have painted this new work above with general ideas of an 'everything landscape' in mind. Yet, I don't know what to call it. Maybe, by the end of writing this post a title will have come to me.

I was wanting to visually capture a sense of vastness at the same time as revealing the minutiae that etches character, nuance and intimacy into the landscape. I wanted the landscape to be ambiguous with regards to exact place and space, yet recognisable as landscape, yes an Australian one, but also a universal one. I hoped that viewers would 'read' the painting in a variety of ways, at one instance seeing for example, land and sea, at another instance land and sky, or maybe fire and water, or perhaps at a micro level seeing a cross section of a drop of water and a grain of sand. Maybe seeing 'everything' and every perspective at once...

This landscape took me back to my childhood growing up on the treeless Pirriunuan Plain, just outside Dalby on the Darling Downs, Queensland. Looking eastwards, the majestic Bunya Moutains cut a startling silhouette against endless skies. Looking westwards the flat horizon shimmered with watery mirages in summer, and in winter the crisp coldness evaporated mirages to almost reveal the curvature of the Earth. Within this vast expanse I could be propelled from a wonder of endless space to a curiosity of micro intimacies. This experience of close and far distance has inspired me over many years. These are the 'landscape' elements I try to visually describe.

Regular readers will know of my interest in perspective, literal and metaphoric. I have written about it numerous times. In an increasingly globalised world in which we live locally, it is imperative that we develop skills in seeing multiple perspectives...even simultaneously. The dance between the macro and micro involves a myriad of, what could be called, perspectival steps... like a tango where there are flamboyantly expressed moves and tantalisingly intimate gestures, or like a symphony where music's fulsome largess can seem beyond distance and individual notes can catapult the listener to places where seductive secrets stir.

So back to the painting above. Two of my much loved transcultural-religious trees-of-life create the landscape elements, both broadly speaking as well as in detail. The Australian landscape, particularly where I grew up, constantly changes. As seasons pass, sorghum crops swathe the landscape in rusty red, wheat fields wash it with naples yellow, sunflowers make it sing with a sunshine yellow, new seedlings whisper a soft green hue. When the soil is fallow it reveals a rich and fertile blackness. The sky can be crystal blue, sometimes greeted by fluffy white clouds, and at other times dense grey ones. At night the darkness is still, only interrupted by the sparkle of the Milky Way and the moon in its various phases. I remember when my Father, like most farmers at the time, used to burn the stubble after harvesting was completed. This was done under controlled conditions and prior to research showing that ploughing the stubble back into the soil was a better method.  The fires were outstanding, furious and shortlived. The colours were rich and thick. In drought the land is bare and naked, after rain it sings with new colours.

Intimate details such as cracked dry soil, scattered seeds, abundant mushrooms after rain, animal droppings, snake trails, discovering chook eggs in the bamboo, dropped feathers, rain drops on leaves, puddles, small insects [sometimes in plague proportions!], wildflowers and so on, are the warp and weft creating the tapestry of vastness. They are all there in the landscape above...trust me!

Regular readers might ask about my concerns for the land, and the landscape, with regards to the burgeoning Coal Seam Gas industry and the growth in open cut mining. Indeed, these activities disrupt the landscape externally and internally, visually and vibrationally. The quiet stillness of the black of night, in parts of Australia, is now silenced with the constant and persistent noise of gas wells. The landscape is visually punctuated with these same wells and underground they bore into depths where gas extraction potentially can change aquifer dynamics and soil profiles. As regular readers know, my concerns have been expressed many time before on this BLOG.

Most Australians know their landscape is affected by the volatility inherent in nature's extremes....bush fires, floods, droughts, cyclones ravage the land. Indeed, in Western Queensland and Northern New South Wales, floods are currently wrecking homes, businesses, crops and infrastructure. The town of St. George is having its third flood within two years and the town has been evacuated. Whilst the water is currently destructive, the long term benefits are enormous. The soil's profile is now replete with moisture, dams and rivers are full. Three to four years ago the soil was starved of moisture, dams were low, rivers in danger.

I think I will call this painting 'Close and Far Distance'

SELECTED PERSPECTIVE AND DISTANCE POSTS

CLOSE DISTANCE
PERSPECTIVE-Distance
INTO THE SYMPHONY
HOPE IN THE DISTANCE
NOTIONS OF PERSPECTIVE
THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING
UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE


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FOR EVERYONE: WORDS AND PAINTINGS UPDATE
Two weeks today until my BOOK LAUNCH!

Just a reminder that my book launch for 'For Everyone: Words and Paintings' is Thursday 23 February! Click HERE for more details.

TESTIMONIALS

Not only is Kathryn a deeply talented, original and inspiring artist, she has a gift for wordsmithing as well! Utilizing the raw power of her art, ‘For Everyone’ is a masterful insight into the very essence of who we truly are, our complexities, our simplicities and who we are meant to be. Dr George Blair-West, Author of The Way of the Quest

In Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox’s book, 'For Everyone: Words and Paintings', the combination of words and images is a gift to the senses. I highly recommend it. Felix Calvino, Author of A Hatful of Cherries

For Everyone is absolutely beautiful and as I read the prose, and looked at the paintings, it was like going on a personal journey of my life. It touched on fond memories of my childhood and reinforced my beliefs in being an individual. As a teacher I know this book could be used in so many ways. In 2011 I organised and ran the Gifted and Talented Program in Writing at my school. Many students in my class published their poetry and stories in an Australian wide writing competition. I am continuing in this position in 2012 and will incorporate this unique book to help my students develop their ideas and be more expressive. The paintings and phrases in For Everyone are great conversation starters. They will also inspire and encourage students to be brave enough to share and express their thoughts and individuality. This book is a fabulous resource for educating and inspiring young people to share the beauty from within! Lou Walsh: Primary School Teacher

So, until next time,
Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

MY WOMEN

Homage Mixed media on paper 37 x 27 cm 1991

The female figure has been a constant presence in my work, particularly since 1991 when I had my first baby. Not all my work depicts women, but I have been told, that my work exudes many aspects of the feminine. Regular readers will possibly think of my love of the tree-of-life, an age-old transcultural/relgious symbol of ongoing life in all its many splendours.

The painting above 'Homage' was created when I was pregnant with my first daughter. The pregnant woman is me, but she seems to resonate with shadows of herself. These are the women of my paternal and maternal ancestry. I look at this painting now and chuckle. Why? Because it is prophetic...the three baby figures on the left seem to be telling my much younger self, that I will have three children. And, I have.

I called it 'Homage' because my maternal grandmother died only six weeks before my first daughter was born. I was her only grand-daughter and a very strong link existed between me and Grand-ma-ma [Yes, that's what she insisted on being called!].

The stepping depicted in the painting was a conscious attempt to depict some kind of acsension, progress...birth to death...but also whatever existed beyond them...no end.

 

                                                                Life Oil on linen 80 x 200 2005

This painting 'Life' was created fourteen years after 'Homage'. It depicts a road with figures puctuating the route. This painting 'speaks' of the cycle of life, but belies the notion of a circle! It is actually somewhat 'dark'.  In this painting I am reflecting upon the power of insidious expectations placed on women ie: that there is a 'road' or 'map' and deviations are not welcomed or possible. Well. I know that is untrue. My deviation, like that of many other women, was divorce.

                                                Am I Mirage? Oil on Board 40 x40 cm 1992

Living With Distance Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm [Diptych] 2001-2

The two paintings above, done ten years apart, resonate with a feeling of distance, yet the female figures seem to emerge from the landscape. In 'Am I Mirage?' I believe now, that the younger me was searching for some kind of identity that was not hinged to the identities I played to 'fit in' to societal expectations. In 1991 I lived in a small rural community, in 2000 I divorced after eighteen years of marriage and moved to Brisbane.

I'd like readers to look at the above two paintings and compare them with the next two.

Breath Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2011

                                     Mother Nature Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2011

The two paintings above, painted this year, and nineteen years after 'Am I Mirage?' and ten years after 'Living With Distance', tell me that the feeling of distance is not longer there or if it is, it is not about being lonely. In the recent paintings the female figure seems less agitated, less tethered. She is Mother Nature, so she is me and she is you. She is that impulse for life within us all...that impulse shared with whatever urge it is for all existence.
I have created a 'gallery' called My Women 1991-Present on my website. There are many more paintings in this 'gallery'. On the one hand this 'gallery' is a very personal visual journey, but on the other hand I know other women will resonate with it...and men too. Looking at the paintings, they also fall under the more general label figure in the landscape. Given that I was born in the country, and then spent eighteen years of my adult life living in the country, it is not a surprise that landscape is an essential part of my inspiration. However, I sense that my recent work is untethered from specific place, as if landscape itself is freed from being bound to Earth. This reminds me of another painting [below] called When I Was A Child I Dreamt I Could Fly.

                    When I Was A Child I Dreamt I Could Fly Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2003
                  http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2006/09/school-holidays.html

When I Was A Child I Dreamt I Could Fly painted in 2003 [when I was certainly no longer anywhere near the age of a child] is a painting directly 'speaking' with my inner child...my inner essence. Even now I can remember the feeling of flying...it was fantastic. AND, this takes me to my book 'For Everyone: Words and Paintings'....a book which calls to your inner child or essence by prodding memory.

 

'FOR EVERYONE: WORDS AND PAINTINGS'

Click HERE to go to 'FOR EVERYONE'S' own page. All sorts of links including where to buy! 

Click HERE to check out Kris Wampler's online interview with me about my book.

Click HERE to go to Jimmy Kopelia's Magazine with a collation of interesting BLOGS, including mine!

Click HERE to see where 'For Everyone' is listed in the SPBRoundup Religious/Spiritual/Inspirational online listing.

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE

The Beginning Of Everything: Remembering Distance Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm

Untethering landscape...what do I mean by this? Well, in this age where astronomers are finding new planets and other celestial bodies/phenomena, and scientists who delve into nanoworlds are discovering equally as amazing phenomena, tethering 'landscape' to images bound to Earth is pretty prosaic! We live in a world where the reaches of distance are phenomenally expansive in their vastness, whether it be into the infinity of outer space or into the seemingly ever increasing spaces of the nano/pico. And, as regular readers will know, I 'see' these distances mirrored in the vast intimacies of the human psyche. I like the paradox suggested by vast intimacies! It helps to turn things upside down and inside out!

So, landscape tethered to images of what we literally see may seem a little unadventurous! For me, landscape goes way beyond what I might see with my eye of eye ball and pupil. In a way, what we literally see, places us outside the landscape where we are observers, rather than participants or even better, resonances of the same star dust. Landscapes that search for and become the distances, whether close or far, of those elements beyond what we literally see reveal the resonances of the star or cosmic dust that is in everything.

Landscape painting or rendering [with any medium] has a capacity to remind us that we are intrinsically part of the landscape, part of the memory of life's first flutter, part of the compulsion of existence. If we see and feel this we'll understand the need to nurture our physical, emotional and spiritual environments in ways which embrace the connectivity of all across time and space. The landscpapes that spring to my mind when I think like this are certainly adventurous! They are not mere representations or copies of what's literally there. Instead they propel horizons, tease perspective, collapse difference, search inside imagination for cellular memories of the beginning of everything. All existence is paradise!

Cosmic Dust Oil on linen 120 x160 cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/09/cosmic-dust.html

This painting is in my current exhibition PARADISE [Details below]

Tattersall's Landscape Art Prize 

This exhibition has now been moved from the Tattersall's Club for public viewing at Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane CBD. The exhibition will continue there until Friday 23rd September. More details at this link: http://apq.com.au/Text/1312866207576-3978/

My painting The Beginning Of Everything: Remembering Distance Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm [Above] is in the exhibition. Here's the post I wrote at the time of painting it. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/beginning-of-everything.html

Paradise Oil on linen 62 x 82 cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/09/where-is-your-paradise.html

 

MY CURRENT EXHIBITION

PARADISE

@ Purgatory Artspace

170 Abbotsford St

North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

61 3 9329 1860

purgatoryartspace@gmail.com

Exhibition Dates: 8 September - 8 October

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 5 pm

...............................................................................................

AND Please come to:

MY ARTIST'S TALK

 

KATHRYN BRIMBLECOMBE-FOX

IN DISCUSSION WITH ART HISTORIAN

Dr. CHRISTINE DAUBER

Saturday 24 September

2-3pm

@ PARADISE

Purgatory Artspace

Light refreshments afterwards

Not so much concerned with the entertainment value attributed to popular culture, this artist’s work grapples with the ideological issues which haunt global politics today and seeks to express bonds of commonality rather than the disparateness of race, religion or politics. To this end, her images utilize an iconographical language that is global in its dimension. Her thematic use of arboreal imagery provides a point of access which crosses both histories and cultures to collapse the difference between east and west.
Christine Dauber Ph D. (Dean's Honours) MA, BA Honours (Art History) University of Queensland

............................................................................................................................................................

Please check out Carolyn McDowall's article about PARADISE

http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/paradise-in-purgatory-kathryn-brimblecombe-fox-finding-light

AND

http://www.artabase.net/exhibition/3275-paradise

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

Youtube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/kabrimblecombe?feature=mhee

'COAL PAINTINGS' and MORE

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Knowing Stillness Oil On linen 85 x 160 cm 2011 In recent weeks my BLOG has been attracting larger numbers of visitors [up to 100 per day!], which is great. Many thanks to all of you who have dropped by. I was quite excited to read on my STATS page today, a number of search phrases and words which have brought visitors here. They include: Darling currency blogspot Abstract rendering Bible 3d 3d hidden images Coal paintings Hidden pictures within pictures Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox Multiverse tree So, the painting above is one of my multiverse paintings. Knowing Stillness invites you to consider, in stillness, the possibility that we are not part of a universe, but a multiverse. I say, in stillness, because stillness provides the space/place where possibilities, that perhaps have not been considered, can be seen, heard and felt. Stillness...almost...replicates that dimension just preceeding the Big Bang, when space, distance and time did not exist, but potential was potent. In Stillness sees a multitude of my much loved transcultural/religious trees-of-life form into one entity...a planet, a universe, a nano particle? Beyond this entity is a space shimmering with small circles of white dots. For me, these are the portals to other universes, keeping in mind, that the universe/multiverse, as a metaphor, can mean these portals could be conduits into the realms of human psyche. Meeting Place Of The Mind Oil on linen 100 x 70 cm 2011 The painting above again gives my tree-of-life some cosmic rendering! This is a paragraph from my previous BLOG post for this painting. The image is a man and woman, who seem to morph into one being. There outstretched arms reach forward erupting into cascading trees. The vortex/spiral enclosing the figures is like a spring of energy, suggesting that the man and woman, who are at the centre of this energy are... conduits, the core, the essential element, the stillness that is replete. The moon, in its phases, represents time and the energy of push and pull, an innate balance. I've uploaded this painting on this post because it is one of my newest, plus if you put on a pair of 3d glasses the painting goes totally 3d! This actually happens with quite a few of my paintings. I had no idea they did this amazing 3d layering until a man brought a pair of 3d glasses into my exhibition Frisson in 2010.

Murray Darling Currency Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm Murray Darling Currency is one of my 'quiet activist' paintings which 'speak' about environmental issues surrounding water, coal seam gas mining, food security and so on. Here's a link to a previous post about this painting. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/murray-darling-currency.html Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast....No Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2010

$oils Ain't $oils Anymore Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2010

The two paintings above could be called 'coal paintings' ie: like the phrase used as a search that lead someone to my BLOG. Here's a link to the post I wrote about Can We Eat Coal For Breakfast....No! http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/food-fantasy-in-future.html Here's a link to the post I wrote for $oils Ain't $oils Anymore http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/oils-aint-oilsany-more.html Check out my GAS GALLERY http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2011/05/gas-gallery.html I am currently working on large oil painting inspired by the Murray Darling environmental 'conversation'. Like the work on paper above, I am using a map of Australia with the Murray Darling region painted in small $ signs. A tree-of-life cascades across the canvas forming the oceans and the continent, reminding us that we all share life on this planet...and

<><><><><> have done so for millenia and hopefully for many more into the future. The small $ signs question how we 'value' our natural resources. The fact that the viewer is unaware of the $ sign until up close, 'asks' the question, 'Have you noticed?' I hope to have this painting finished by next week. <><><><><> In Stillness and Meeting Place of The Mind will both be in my Melbourne exhibition 'Paradise' @ Purgatory Artspace, 170 Abottsford St, North Melbourne 8 September -8 October. I intend to hang some of my 'quiet activist' paintings too, because our environment is our paradise...and paradise lost. Check out my PARADISE online gallery for a glimpse at some of the paintings. http://tinyurl.com/3ndj542

<><><><><><><> JUNG SOCIETY

<><><><><><><> I am the speaker at the next C.J Jung Society meeting Tursday 4 August 7.30-9.30 pm http://www.jungqld.com/ My topic....The tree of Life! TATTERSALL’S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD: I have been invited again this year to participate in the Tattersall’s Landscape Art Award. The award is announced Wednesday 7 September. The exhibition will be on display at Waterford Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane September 12 – 23. ALSO! Please check out. Two workshops I am co-presenting. http://www.artandinsights.blogspot.com/ Cheers, Kathryn www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com   <><><><><>

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UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE

Other Universes Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm

At my artist's talk in discussion with Dr. Christine Dauber on March 26 she asked me a question about landscape. She basically asked if I identified myself as a landscape painter. This is an interesting one for me, because for many years I would have described myself as such. However, whilst I still paint what could be called landscapes, I don't think the term 'landscape painter', or describing my painting as 'landscape', is fulsome enough. I've pondered this for some time now, even prior to Dr. Dauber bringing the topic to the fore. When I answered her question I basically said 'yes and no'! I ventured to suggest that whilst my feet are planted on the ground my head is actually in the clouds, so I 'see' the external and internal world in and from multiple perspectives.

I have said 'external' and 'internal' because the way I 'see' is both an outward observation with my eye, of eye ball and pupil, as well as an inward one with my mind's 'eye'. The latter is, I suppose, what I 'see' in and with my imagination. Both observations involve another level, which is my emotional response which can quicken or ignite excitement, further wonder, intellectual stimulation, revelation.

Someone, and I cannot remember who, described my paintings as 'spiritual landscapes'. This is probably getting close to the mark, but I still have a niggling problem with the word landscape and what it means to most people ie: an image of or inspired by the literal physical landscape of our external environment. I have had a thought...maybe this meaning of landscape tethers us to a line of sight perspective, with its contingent uni dimensionality, that ultimately blinds us to other dimensions. Are we, in fact, attached to a diminished idea of landscape which affects how we view our world and beyond? If we are, its not a helpful way of 'seeing' as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world.

Recent natural disasters remind us that our landscape can change dramatically and dreadfully, not just cyclically with seasons etc. Change is inherent within the external landscape and tethering ourselves to a vision of constancy in one dimension, I propose, makes it much harder to cope with catastrophe, as well as blinding us to new ways of 'seeing'. The latter probably impacts on how we live in and treat our environment.

The Beginning Of Everything Oil On Linen 90 x 180 cm

If everything in this universe is the result of a BIG BANG, then everything is the BIG BANG'S dust. If everything [and this includes us!] is dust from a common source, then everything is 'landscape'. I ponder upon this and think about how I am inspired...not just what inspires me. Once something triggers my imagination I see inside myself. I actually feel my eyes 'glass' over as I almost plummet to immeasurable internal depths. It often feels much more vast than the external world. In a way, by traversing my internal world I find  pathways to alternative outside worlds. The landscape is within and without.

Cosmic Dust Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

If everything is the dust from the BIG BANG then there must be a common fundamental code imbedded within everything. Now that's exciting. I can already 'see' that this code is the foundation of and for landscape...a landscape that is not about time or place, but of existence. This code is both here and now, which is in the past and the future. Maybe our imagination has the capacity to stir this common fundamental code agitating it to reveal itself?

However, if we are tethered to a uni dimensional notion of landscape then it means we [probably mainly westerners!] have trained our brains, over time, to view the world this way. I am reminded of Dr. Norman Doidge's fabulous book, 'The Brain That Changes Itself' and his talk at this year's Qld Writers' Festival. Encultured ways of 'seeing' create maps in our brains, but we can change these maps if, as time goes on, we find that previous ways of 'seeing' are not helpful. I am suggesting it is time to change! This is where art's agency lies. Art can help trigger the impetus to create new maps in our brains...maps that link more with imagination or our 'mind's eye' rather than just our eye of eye ball and pupil. I have previously written about Norman Doidge's book and art:
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/01/love.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/02/becoming.html

As I explore the potential and potency of the transcultural/religious tree-of-life weaving into my paintings, I wonder if the tree holds the clue to the code imbedded within everything? After all, it can represent systems of all kinds. Its branches and its roots link matter and air, heaven and earth. It symbolises life across religions and cultures through stories and myth. It breaths for us and the planet, and it is in a constant state of change. I wonder.


Cheers,
Kathryn
http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

UNLEASHING WONDER

Unlimited Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

Below is the essay written for my 2005 Abu Dhabi exhibition by Holly Arden, Arts Writer and graduate in Art History [Hons First Class] from the University of Queensland. Holly is currently completing her PhD at Monash University, Theory Dept of the Faculty of Art and Design.

The paintings I have uploaded are a few that were in my Abu Dhabi exhibition and that Holly refers to in her essay.

I have uploaded the essay, because in the last few days I have received some very insightful comments from a person, based in Munich, who visited my BLOG and website. He also made insightful comments about Holly's essay.

When Holly showed me the completed essay with an introductory quote from author Andrew McGahan's 'The White Earth' I was astounded...and very pleased! Holly had had no idea that my parent's farm and the McGahan farm were only a few kilometres apart, and that our families have been friends for decades. Our farms were/are at Pirrunuan which is a railway crossing between Dalby and Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. The Pirrinuan and Jimbour Plains are treeless tracks of rich black cracking soil. To the west is an endless flat horizon which shimmers into watery mirages. To the east the Bunya Mountain Ranges cut a sharp silhouette against the vast sky. Here's a link to a Google Map where you can see our farms. My farm is at the top left.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&hl=en&om=1&source=embed&t=h&ll=-27.042309,151.237965&spn=0.030044,0.07699&z=14

The White Earth' has received a number of literary awards including; Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region, The Age Book of the Year (Fiction) and the Courier Mail Book of the Year Award. It was also shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards that same year. Check out these 2 sites: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289744278.html
http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=311&author=218

Holly's 'seeing' of my images in Andrew's words, and her 'reading' of Andrew's prose in my images, spells out the 'magic' foreverness of the vast landscape we grew up in. It also illustrates the power of landscape on the imagination, where the imagination untethers itself from mere replication and description, to stir the vibrational currents that link us all to nature, and thus the impulses of life. The vastness of my childhood landscape gave space to notice the details, to swing from the minutae to the endless, and in doing so unleashed wonder.

Regular readers, who know of my concerns about the Coal Seam Gas [CSG] industry, will feel my distress about the impacts of the influx of coal seam gas mining on the Darling Downs, one of Australia's few prime food producing farmlands.  By puncturing the earth with gas wells, situated about 1 ha apart, not only will there be impacts on the internal health of soils and aquifers, but also on the external landscape. Already, in places where CSG has been active for some time, I have heard of water bores which have dried up, and farmers not being able to find water when trying to establish new bores.

In Holly Arden's chosen quote from Andrew McGahan's book, he refers to 'familiar squares of cultivation' [ie: broadacre farming]. If you have a look at the Google map I linked above you will see an aerial view of what broadacre farming looks like. With CSG, these ' familiar squares of cultivation', will be criss crossed with the all weather access roads which are needed to access every gas well. If you have not seen images of these roads, the pattern on the landscape is like a chaotic web, which disrupts economical and efficient farming practices, creates potential soil erosion issues, subtracts acreage from a farmer's cropping, causes potential problems because of run off [water and vehicular oils etc] onto farming land...etc etc. The landscape will no longer be 'familiar', but more importantly its life sustaining gifts of quality food and fibre will be compromised. Now this is something to be fearful of!

But, this brings me to another question. It is a soul question. What vibrational impact will an internally and externally compromised landscape have on who we are as a race...human race? Yes, over eons, we [human race]  have already changed our landscape in order to feed, house and clothe ourselves. Yet, it seems to me, that this has been a, more or less, evolving process, where we have made mistakes, learnt and changed activity to be more sustainable...it is an ongoing process. But, CSG and the growth of open cut mining in Queensland [and other parts of Australia] are radically, and very quickly, changing our landscape in a way which seems unfetted and diametrically opposed to lessons learnt over the eons. At a forum, on SCG and Open Cut Mining, that I attended at the University of Qld, a few weeks ago, I [and the others in the audience] were appalled when Government and Mining Industry representatives admitted that they did not know the full impact of CSG on the environment, but they'd learn as they go!


                           

Hidden Secrets Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

Essay By Holly Arden

…at the foot of the hill washed the plains, immediately flat. Close by the land was divided up into the familiar squares of cultivation, but as the eye leapt outwards the colours and shapes merged, fields and farms spreading all the way to the horizons…. On the left marched the blue line of the mountains, and on the right, the land merely extended forever westwards.
- Andrew McGahan, 'The White Earth'

If there is such thing as a cultural psyche, landscape would be a defining feature of it. This must at least be true in Australia, for people of both indigenous and non-indigenous heritage. And it is hardly surprising, given that Australia is four-fifths the size of North America with a population of around 20.4 million. The landscape, vast and for the most part unpopulated, is literally everywhere. ‘The Land Down Under’, ‘The Great Southern Land’: historically, mythologically and psychologically, Australia’s identity is characterised by the distances that mark its interior and separate it from the rest of the world.


As a result, landscape painting has led arguably the strongest course of Australian art. The landscape works of early post-colonial artists evidenced a type of psychological rationalisation of what they encountered in these new foreign lands. Consequently, these were often filtered through a European aesthetic. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists have pictured landscapes that recount stories of the creation of their ancestral lands. In all its forms, landscape art is a means through which artists have situated themselves physically and sensually, culturally and psychologically, in relation to place. As James Baker writes: ‘Landscape art is often a metaphor for…mindsets in that it is also a result of the response to the environment, not just a representation of it.’

What type of response might living in rural Queensland generate? Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox lived for decades in the agricultural communities of Dalby and Goondiwindi in the state’s south-east. The feelings of desolation and loneliness provoked by rural life has left its mark on the work of numerous Australian painters, foreshadowed it seems by the colonial experience. So it comes, perhaps, as a surprise to see the markedly upbeat works in this exhibition. One of the first ways we experience this is through Brimblecombe-Fox’s use of colour: jewel-like blues and fiery reds. Such reds ring true to the deep russet of the region’s soil and are coupled in works such as Life’s Vibration with a vibrant force of energy expressed by lines that vibrate with optic movement. These are scenes quite different to those traditionally pictured, for example, in Russell Drysdale’s desolate brownish terrains.

Secondly, there is a sense of harmony in these paintings achieved partly through the artist’s refined, almost diagrammatic forms. This suggests Brimblecombe-Fox works from a certain level of objectivity or ‘remove’. By ‘remove’ I mean that she is able to view the earth as a natural system and as one part of a much greater whole. Through the working of its ‘parts’, the vegetation that nurtures life, the blood that supports it, the natural world is able to revolve continuously. In a group of paintings that feature a circular earth motif, a network of roots/nerve endings/blood lines service the earth like veins. These connect with a much greater expanse of sky, which puts the earth, quite literally, into perspective. There is something liberating about this and also humbling. In works such as Every Wonderful Possibility, the sky is formed through repeated semi-circular brushstrokes. Traditionally symbolic of harmony and fertility, the circular earth is filled with the roots of life.

A range of rarefied mountain landscapes accompanies these busier paintings. The stylised, patterned forms in these works have a strong graphic quality. The sharp contrasts of the Darling Downs landscape where the artist lived perhaps lend themselves to such picturing. These are places where rain, as in Mountains Dancing, falls in visible sheets and where the mountains, as writer Andrew McGahan describes, “march” on one side, while “on the right, the land merely extend[s] forever westwards.” These are scenes of hard lines or else expanses of coloured nothingness. Then there are the man-made forms, the angular fields and irrigation channels; landscapes which, especially in the harsh light and heat, lend them to abstract rendering. And in the heat of the day, as in Mountains Dancing, there are illusions everywhere, where the luminous blue of the mountains could be mistaken for a gathering of lakes.

Mountains Dancing Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm

The use of abstracted form is also, for Brimblecombe-Fox, a way of translating her impressions of landscape into paint, impressions for which there are not always visual equivalents. None of these works were painted on site. Therefore, by employing a series of ‘motifs’ that might represent a thought or feeling about a place, or through intuitive brushwork, Brimblecombe-Fox maps a personal, inner landscape. A defining marker of the Darling Downs landscape, the mountain is repeated in a varied range of responses to this metaphor for life’s goals and challenges. (And there must be at least one personal mountain here; achieving an exhibition, let alone in another country is one steep climb)! In Metaphor, warmth seems to emanate from beneath the blanket-like covering of the mountain. In Hidden Secrets, the mountains are veiled, elusive and because of this, ever so slightly ominous. In the russet coloured painting, Mountains As Metaphors, the flowing painted line transforms the mountain range into a wave-like abstract form. Floating in an expanse of flat colour it is inaccessible but, with its gentle undulations, its distance causes no anxiety.

Mountains As Metaphors Oil on linen 80 x 200 cm

Mountains As Metaphors demonstrates Brimblecombe-Fox’s distinctive use of abstract graphic form, particularly line. In this work, the line is highly charged, seeming literally to carve the landscape out from a red void. In Earth’s Vibration and Inside The Mirage, multitudes of loose lines suggest a landscape quivering with potential energy. These heavily worked lines are also physical signifiers of the artist shaping the land in paint. In contrast to these more highly composed paintings, a group of gentler, freer works reflects the artist’s fascination with the possibilities of her medium. In Unlimited, for example, Brimblecombe-Fox builds thin washes of paint, allowing these to drip into forms that could be rain-washed landscapes or layers of wood grain.

Inside The Mirage Oil on linen 80 x 200 cm

Informed by vastness and distance, Brimblecombe-Fox’s paintings have an essence of Australia. But aren’t these qualities (feelings, stories) that might also be found throughout the world, in the desert scapes of the Middle East? Thus, while they speak of specific sites, gained through decades of living in rural Queensland, they are not essentially Australian. Part psychological, part allegorical, they have universal resonance. Most refreshingly, while her large canvases hint at emotions such as the fear and loneliness that come with isolated living, Brimblecombe-Fox never allows them to become overly sentimental. Instead, they reflect a mature artist with the ability to balance feeling with resolved, sophisticated approaches to painting this most charged of subjects.
Holly Arden

So, until next time,
Cheers,
Kathryn
http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

NEXT SOLO EXHIBITION
VORTEX 22 Feb-6 March, Graydon Gallery, 29 Merthyr Rd, New Farm, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
I am thinking of having an 'artist's talk' in discussion with an Art Historian on Sat 26 or Sun 27 Feb. Stay tuned for details.