COMMODIFIED

Commodified Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2011

PARADISE @ Purgatory Artspace Melbourne

'Paradise' is open to the public from Thursday 8 September! The opening night is Friday 9 September 6-8 pm. The exhibition dates are 8 September - 8 October, 11 am - 5 pm Tuesday to Saturday at PURGATORY ARTSPACE, 170 Abbotsford St, North Melbourne.

Please check out http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/

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

'COMMODIFIED' Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2011

The painting is obviously a map of Australia, but upon closer scrutiny the viewer will discern that the 'map' is created with small $ signs. Regular readers of this BLOG will know that I use small $ signs to depict water, soil etc to pose or stimulate questions about how we 'value' our land. I deliberately make the $ signs small so that from a distance the viewer does not discern them, but when the viewer is close the $ signs become clearly apparent. This play with distance asks questions such as, 'Have you noticed?' It plays with the responsibility we all have to negotiate distance as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world. AND, I don't mean just physical distance, but temporal, cultural, emotional and spiritual.


I am deeply concerned about the sustainability of prime and strategic farmland in Australia. An enslaught of rapid and hectic activity from mining companies, especially coal seam gas miners, threatens this sustainability. I hasten to add, I am not anti-mining per se, but I am anti any kind of activity that threatens strategic and prime food producing farmland. With a burgeoning population the world needs to maintain its farmlands in order to feed people. After all, you cannot flick the light switch if you've expired from hunger! Governments need to ensure prime farmlands, and the farmers who farm them, are protected from invasive mining activities. These include those activites that threaten above and below ground water supplies and quality, soil health, and efficient and environmenatlly sound farming practices. Regular readers will know that I have written about these before. Here are some links to previous posts:
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2011/01/underground-currency.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/oils-aint-oilsany-more.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/food-fantasy-in-future.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/murray-darling-currency.html

Governments must prioritise food sustainability for obvious humane reasons, but also for political stability. Hungry stomachs make for angry hearts, and angry hearts make for civil unrest and worse.

'Commodified' is a simple looking painting...indeed it did not take as long as some of my more intricate ones, but it speaks of the madness errupting across parts of Qld and NSW [indeed across the globe! Have you seen 'Gasland'?] with regards to potential degradation of farmlands by mining activities. This madness is what I see as the outer VORTEX, the chaotic whirlwind that does not allow for contemplation and considered scrutiny...or for a scientific analysis of risk. Two soil scientists who spoke at the public forum on the CSG industry, which I attended at the University of Queensland late last year, both started their presentatons describing what's happening as 'madness'. Here's the link to my post about the forum:  http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/donkey-and-other-things.html

Anyway, I am hungry, so I am going to make dinner now.

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

Check some paintings out at FLICKR http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathrynbrimblecombe-fox/

ARTIFICE OF FANTASY

From The Stillness Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

I am back in the studio properly now, after my break following FRISSON. The house smells of turps. I smell of turps. I call it my 'eau de turps' perfume. I spent this morning preparing the first layer of colour on 5 canvases. Lots of paint, turps and linseed oil! I also sat and stared at a 90 x 200 cm canvas which already has the background completed. I have so many ideas, I have to sift through each imagined image to 'test' to 'see' if it suits the long horizontal format, plus if I feel myself getting really excited about it. I've sketched and made notes to myself over the last 6 or so weeks and today I have been reading through my various art diaries to get a 'feel' for how I am going to proceed.

In the middle of all this activity I finished a work on paper [above] which I had started last week when I tentatively ventured into my room where I create my works on paper. I have to wait for the newly prepared canvases to dry, or partially dry, before I can splash some more paint around. Thus, finishing this work on paper helped me process some of my thoughts. I certainly don't want to lose my thoughts!!!

The painting above is called 'From The Stillness'. It depicts my imagined self inside a vortex. No, I am not unrelentingly caught up in a dizzying twirling and swirling, but rather, I am in the core of the vortex where I imagine stillness, yet unfathomable positive energy and unconditional love to exist. It is in the stillness that I imagine the presence of the divine, which I have symbolised with a white light that cascades over my body. This 'light' erupts from the vortex core into life, which is represented by my much loved transcultural-religious tree-of-life.

I have more images of vortex cores and erupting white light inside my head. Plus, I have images inside my head of elliptical galaxies, figures transforming into trees and much, much more. As each image appears in my imagination I know that they come from processes buried deep in my psyche and in time, which find their catalysts in wonder.

Now to some thoughts which are linked to all that I have already written above, but are broader in their perspective. Imagination is the superconductor of knowledge. Without imagination and wonder where would we be? Science, mathematics, philosophy...discovery of any kind is aided and driven by imagination and wonder. Yet, I sometimes think that people confuse imagination with fantasy. For me, the latter is more about wishful thinking and is prone to unhealthy distortion, pretense and superficiality. Oh, it can be fun, but it can also be dangerous as the imploded 'fantasy' of subprime loans and other crumbling edifices of the GFC have revealed. And, what about the 'fantasy' worlds created by leaders such as Mugabe, Hitler and others of their ilk?

I am reminded of J.K. Rowling's Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association
http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
She says of imagination, Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. She goes on to say,  I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

Maybe the 'wilfully unimaginative' are those prone to the artiface of fantasy? This makes one think about the role post-modernism has played [literally played!] in the artifice which the GFC has revealed and continues to reveal. I wrote a post in November 2008 about postmodenism and the implosion of financial markets and economies http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/11/after-implosion.html

All this makes one ponder upon art. It seems to me that fantasy may have crept into the visual lexicon, but at what cost? Fantasy can be arresting [momentarily], spectacular [as in being a spectacle], clever but not necessarily intelligent, seductive but not sensual, slapstick but not humourous, didactic [ie: not meaningful], interesting but not memorable...and so on. How can we tell when art is playing with fantasy or revelling in the superconducting depths of imagination and wonder?

J.K Rowling's statement about imagination being the vehicle by which we can empathise with others is pivotally important. It is the capacity to put oneself in another's shoes, bypassing gratuitous sympathy to plummet into the intimacy of shared compassion. It is the capacity to change perspective or even  to 'see' multiple perspectives simultaneously. Regular readers of this BLOG know of my intense interest in art's potential catalytic agency to stimulate new dance steps across the multiple perspectives which are revealed as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world. Compassion is paramount.

I highly recommend J.K. Rowlings speech which you can either read or watch @
http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

Below is a picture of my 'studio' [garage] where I paint my large oil on linen paintings. You can see the first layer of colour on the 5 of the canvases I prepared this morning.

Cheers,
Kathryn

SHIFT

Royalties Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2010

June 1 is the date I said I would be back into my studio, after taking some time to gather myself and my thoughts following my exhibition FRISSON in March. But, I have been back into my studio a little bit lately to start some works on paper dealing with my ongoing interest in water. I have previously written quite a lot about this interest, but there is just so much to think about, especially when placed against a backdrop of current economic conditions, both domestic and international.

I am particularly thinking about the issues surrounding coal seam gas extraction in the Surat Basin where owners and operators of prime grazing and farming lands are currently negotiating with the mining companies which have prospecting rights. The issues of contaminated water, reduced underground aquifer levels, potential reduced water for grazing and farming needs, potential reduced land available for grazing and farming production [thus food!], potential land degradation and increased salinity levels, increased noise and dust, infrastructure capacity stress eg: roads, schools, increased traffic [particularly heavy vehicles] etc way heavily. Social issues such as rural camaraderie may be affected by the vagaries of deal making, resultant inuendo and secrecy. The social fabric of small rural communities means that everyone talks about eveyone else and knows, at least to some extent, what others are doing. I know! I have lived in small rural communities for nearly 40 years, having been born into a farming family outside Dalby, right in the middle of some of the richest and deepest top soil in the southern hemisphere. I then spent 18 years living in Goondiwindi, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, with a population of around 5,000 people in the town and another 5,000 people in the surrounding districts.

Blue Gold Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2009

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/02/water.html

Dalby is smack bang in the middle of the coal seam gas bonanza. This is another reason why I am particularly interested in the huge shift in the focus of rural survival, the economic and the social outcomes. The quickened heart beat of change and worry is sensed when you place the local issues of the Surat Basin against the Australian Federal Government's announcement to impose a rent tax on the mining industry, the ferocious opposition to the rent tax from mining and affiliated companies plus the Federal Opposition and the immediate share price falls of mining and affiliated companies [which affects amongst other things, the retirement superannuation funds of ordinary Australians]. On the broader scale the macro economic conditions of our world are tortuously exacerbated by natural and manmade disasters, immanent battle to arms and the ongoing licking of wounds inflicted by the GFC.

Gee, we live in fantastic times! Regular readers might think I am being uncharacteristically negative and sombre. I don't see the world through rose tinted glasses or bury my head in the sand, but I am interested in trying to see, from both local and global perspectives, where emergent patterns of change are occurring. The plethora of disaster being experienced in the world, from financial and economic collapses to hurricanes and earth quakes, political tensions with fanatical nations to unforgiveable oil spills do remind us of reality. Financial undertakings cannot be about fantasy, increased natural disasters remind us to look after our planet, fanatical individual, groups and nations live and think differently and cannot be wished away via traditional logical means, and massive manmade disasters remind us that risk has a capital R.I.S.K and must be dealt with honestly and without bravado.

Truth Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2009

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/06/truth.html

There was a flurry of interest last week about the announcement, by Craig Venter and his team, of the creation of synthetic life. Here's a link to the TED talk  http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_unveils_synthetic_life.html  However, this week I have not read much about this amazing development. But, this often happens with scientific discoveries. Why? I am not sure, but maybe the media decides another story is more saleable. In this case the iPad certainly must be a far more saleable story that the creation of synthetic life, because there's been plenty in the general media about the iPad.

But, back to being serious...the creation of synthetic life does pose risk [RISK] because, for example, in the hands of a mad person, who understood the scientific process, the world could be taken over by cell sized replicating synthetic warriors that could, for instance, eat us from the inside out, take over our minds and so on [I will let you imagine!]. However, on the upside synthetic cell sized replicating life could be developed to 'eat up' oil spills. Craig Venter mentions a number of positive uses and applications for synthetic life in the TED talk. The viewer gets the impression he only touches the surface of what is possible. He also mentions risk and the steps taken to avoid it...very gratifying and reassuring.

Obviously it is early days, but just imagine if sythetic life could replace the need for coal seam gas! Then the Surat Basin would be returned to the farmers, albeit 'pock marked'. Imagine if it could replace other energy sources! Rent taxes would be superfluous. Just imagine................................................

The out of the blue, left field development which appears within the complexity of life, and thus shifts our expectations is where excitement and potential lie.

ROYALTIES  Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [Above]
The yellow foreground of this ambiguous landscape is created with $ signs. Regular readers of my BLOG know I have used $ before. I have also used them in the second painting above Blue Gold ...'blue gold' being water. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/02/water.html  The smallness of the $ signs means that the viewer initially does not really notice them, but upon a closer examination they do. I have watched people as they move closer to my $ paintings. The realisation shows on their faces as they move even closer to the image and then move back again to get a broader perspective. Regular readers know that this action of moving close and then moving back to a distance is important to me for a couple of reasons. One, it replicates the artist's action of painting up close and then moving back to view from a distance, to make decisions based on a range of concerns from aesthetic to meaning. Two, this action of moving back and forth is like a dance, the kind of dance I 'see' as necessary in a global world in which we live locally. In Royalties the small circles in the 'sky' are dotted with the same $ yellow. These circles are like portals which seem to offer alternative visons for how we place 'value' on the offerings of our Earth.  Questions I ask are: in the flurry of activity what are we noticing?  What and where are our blindspots? Is it possible to see the 'big picture' at the same time as seeing the details? The last question is one I try to grapple with in my paintings...I like to think that people experience a sense of what it is like to see the macro at the same time as the micro, thus changing ideas of perspective and perhaps shedding light to reveal our blindspots.

Cheers, Kathryn

SEEING AROUND CORNERS

Together Gouache on paper 30 x 21 cm [SOLD]

'Presence' opened on Thursday night last week in Maleny at the buzzing Upfront Club. The club is run by the Maple Street Co-operative, which also runs a great shop selling all sorts of good things for you. Maleny is a world leader in co-operative kinds of enterprises. http://www.upfrontclub.org/  http://www.maplestreetco-op.com/

The opening was lots of fun, with quite a number of people there to see my paintings and hear my short speech, which was received with enthusiasm! Give me a microphone and words tumble out of my mouth! It is very exciting when you can connect people to like minded others...and this happened in a beautiful way too. Photos are on there way and once they get to me I will upload onto the BLOG and tell you more.

After my exhibition 'Frisson' in March I decided to take a little rest from painting, because quite frankly I was exhausted. But, no rest from thinking, reading and so on. My date to re-enter my studio enforce is June 1. I am getting itchy fingers and will admit to dabbling with some works on paper. But, I have 9 new linen stretchers of varying sizes sitting in my garage/studio and they are beckoning! As I have written and said before, the blank canvas is never really blank, because an artist's mind's eye creates many images upon the blankness before deciding to take hold of the brush to make that first visible mark. The preceeding imagined images still exist within that first mark and those that follow though.

So, where are my thoughts for my new paintings taking me? Well... they traverse the immensity and intimacy of both the nano and the universal. I am 'seeing' things that in one instance could be miniscule, but in another instance further thought opens the initially perceived dimension to something so immense it is almost without size. My much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life is still a central guiding motif because at every turn of thought I 'see' it as providing the clue to the archetype of everything!

Books such as "The Brain That Changes Itself' by Dr. Norman Doidge and 'Our Final Century' by Prof. Martin Rees have given me SO much to ponder. The immensity of the unknown is clearly negotiated with both intellect and imagination. In fact, without imagination and creativity one wonders where knowledge would be?

Imagination as well as intellect helps us to search for and find the links and similarities between people. On the universal scale, something all humankind [past, present and future] share is our planet Earth. And, whilst it might seem like it is the centre of the Universe, it is not, and whatever Earth's future is, it is our's too. The new scientific breakthrough where artificially created DNA has been placed within an emptied cell, which has then replicated itself, is both amazing and horrifying. Rees discusses the upside and downside potential of this kind of breakthrough in his book, even though in the early 2000s this kind of breakthrough was only imagined. He also spends some time looking at risk [any kind of risk to our planet and humanity] and it is in this discussion that imagination and extrapolation are significant. However, what is obvious is that risk is something which all of humanity must acknowledge as shared. As Rees also points out we need to think not of just our present selves, but also the potential risk to future generations over time.

Imagination often presents us with a scenario, an image, a thought which for some time satisfies us, but sometimes a new piece of information, will propel the initial imagined scenario, image or thought into further dimensions. Those imagined things can unfold to reveal synchronicities, prophetic vibes and unconsious 'knowings' that were not acknowledged or 'seen' in the intitial imaginings. When this happens it feels like imagination is an energy force, that can 'see' around corners.

MALENY and PRESENCE

Seeping Into The Intimate Vastness Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm $4000 * http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/06/seeping-into-intimate-vastness.html

Here's a suggestion! If you are from around Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast  Take a Leisurely drive to Maleny, brouse around the shops, have lunch at the Upfront Club...and see my paintings!!! Or better still stay in the Monteville/Maleny area for the weekend, then you could take in a live music gig at the Upfront Club too.
Cheers,
Kathryn
http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

* The price is for the exhibition 'Presence' which ends 15 June. This is the current market price and will be maintained or increased after 15th June.

NOTIONS OF PERSPECTIVE

Into My Galaxy Oil on linen 85 x 147 cm

I hung my exhibition 'Presence' at the Upfront Club in Maleny yesterday. For my BLOG visitors from overseas, Maleny is a picturesque town in the hinterland hills behind Queensland's famous Sunshine Coast. It takes about 1 3/4 hours to drive north from Brisbane. The town has an eclectic population of young and old, artists, musicians, retired academics, retired all sorts of people [journalists, merchant bankers, farmers], hillchangers from Sydney and Melbourne, Feng Shui experts, world leaders in co-operatives and so on.

The show looks great...if I say so myself. And, I certainly received very positive stroking comments from a number of people ...passers by, staff at the Upfront Club, diners. Lots of chatting yesterday in between the unwrapping of paintings and being precariously perched on the top rung of a ladder.

Here's a link to a recent  previous post about 'Presence':
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/05/presence.html

DETAILS OF THE EXHIBITION:

Title of Exhibition: PRESENCE
Dates: Thursday 20 – Tuesday 15 June 2010
Venue: Upfront Club, 31 Maple St, Maleny. 07 5494 2592 http://www.upfrontclub.org/
Opening Event: Thursday 20 May 6 pm – 8 pm

Forever Connected Oil on linen 120 x 80 cm

The Brush Of Angels' Wings Oil on linen 50 x 92 cm

The three paintings above 'Into My Galaxy', 'Forever Connected' and 'The Brush Of Angels' Wings' are in 'Presence'. With all three paintings I have explored notions of perspective. Regular readers of my BLOG know that literal and metaphoric perspective are of great interest to me. Metaphoric perspective is the greater interest. However, I distort or play with literal perspective to engage the viewer in a felt experience of not being quite sure of their viewing point and thus their 'place' in relationship with the painting. In an increasingly globalised world in which we live locally, I think it is a matter of survival to develop skills of 'seeing' multiple perspectives simultaneously. Yet, traditional notions of perspective compel us to 'see' maybe one to three points of view, but not necessarily simultaneously. Distance also transpires to keep perspective as a line-of-sight kind of experience rather than a sentient multi-dimensional experience, that maybe akin to some kind of absorbtion. With this in mind, I am beginning to think that traditional notins of perspective are limiting and that a new name needs to be created to describe the ability to 'see' mutiple viewpoints simultaneously.

The three paintings above all depict the tree-of-life. As regular readers of my BLOG know this archetypal symbol is my favoured visual vehicle to explore my ideas. The tree-of-life is transcultural and trans-religious and thus needs no or little explanation. From my experience I know its potency is that it resonnates deep within people, at an almost cellular level. Yet, why should this surprise? The tree mirrors our own bodies, our internal life systems as well as those systems that nurture the Earth...and of course the potential is that it provides some kind of mirror to those systems existing beyond Earth, but which in turn keep our planet from disappearing.

'Into My Galaxy' is all about 'out there'. The tree is the source seemingly contained within the moment of fertilisation, set against a universal background which simultaneously suggests endless space and the intimate warm protection of the womb. Yet, the tree could also be interpreted as being inside the energy or fundamental force suggested by String Theory. Viewed up close this painting revelas that all the small markings which create the colourful background are little squigggles or 'strings' replicating the larger shape in which the tree is contained.

Regular readers of my BLOG know that I am very interested in how people view my paintings. The movement back and forth to see my work at close and far distance is important to me. Firstly it replicates how I have created a painting, as I paint up close and move back to a distance to examine and analyse what I have done. Secondly, this movement of both the artist and the viewer is maybe an exemplar for how we need to view our increasingly globalised world ie: to understand and 'see' the macro as well as the micro.

I have written about 'The Brush Of Angels' Wings' and 'Forever Connected' previously. Here are the links:
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/05/angels-wings.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/05/forever-connected.html


Here are the prices for the three paintings for the exhibition 'Presence'
'Into My Galaxy' $4500 AUD
'The Brush Of Angels' Wings'  $2600 AUD
'Forever Connected' $4000 AUD

Cheers,
Kathryn

WONDER

After a couple of weeks not painting I am now back into it. I was distracted by the preparation for two presentations which both went well. I have to say, though, I prefer being in my studio on my own. Venturing into the public arena is always fun, but I need to recharge my batteries with some alone time in my studio. The recharging is under way.

The good thing about a break is that it can cause a departure from previous work. Others may not pick up on the departure, but I am aware of it. I used to fight it, but now I welcome it knowing that any departure is a result of new experiences, rethinking and reflection...even if it has only happened in a couple of weeks.

In my presentation for the Qld Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Queensland University of Technology Art Museum I spoke to the topic 'A Critical Space: The Art/Science Nexus'. One of my suggestions was that both artists and scientists have insightful powers of observation. This might happen to a greater or lesser extent in individuals, but generally speaking acute observation is a capacity which is shared by both scientists and artists. Both may observe their physical surroundings but they will also observe their reactions to and thoughts about these observations. It is one thing to observe with your seeing eye, but to observe those things which sight might trigger in the imagination where the capacity for wonder exists is another level of observation.

Artists and scientists will make internal critical judgements about their wonderings. This is where there is possibly a departure in manner because the desired outcomes are different. And, it is a good thing there is a difference, because I believe art must avoid the trap of thinking it can provide answers when it has the power to prompt questions. However, science is driven to find answers albeit knowing that any answer must be refutable. Questions keep science honest, but only to the extent of the quality of the questions. Art is one of science's partners pushing for questions based on wonder and imagination.

The power of observation ranging from observing the external to then observing the internal paths of imagination and wonder is a dance of close and far distance. The artist and the scientist employ powers of perspective to view their physical world and also their own internal worlds. Interestingly I have written the plural for internal 'worlds'. This poses interesting questions about the space or distance which is inside each of us.

The painting above is called 'Rain Brings Hope', gouache on paper, 30 x 42 cm [unframed]. It is from my 'Water' series of works on paper.