beyond ground
Artist Statement
Air scapes, the sky, the void above, this exhibition is an exploration of that romantic space just above the horizon, the distant brought to the present.
The ephemeral cloudscapes of older painters, Dutch masters, Canaletto, Constable andTurner were the springboard for this body of work. My initial idea came from looking at small sections, patches of skies and wanting to enlarge them until distance enveloped all of space.
In my sky fragments, there is interplay between paint, light and tracery. Through a layering of on average two hundred films of acrylic, each work becomes an aggregated depth and surface of shifts and distortions.
In the diptych panels, I play with depictions of skies from early steel engravings (mostly from Canaletto’s views of Venice, engraved by Antonio Visentini). The stylised lines in these engravings intrigued me. In scaling up fragments of these engravings the flaws and shifts in line and mark, confound traditional interpretation. I also enjoy the contrapuntal abutment of the hard edge and amorphous and its dissolving companion.
Early on in this body of work, I was also influenced by mirrors—the pure space they seem to hold, and the way an image hovers on the their surface or almost beyond the surface. I wanted to transfer this quality into paint. You can see that in particular works I have played with a silver mirage reminiscent of the precious ground of 13th century altar-pieces in which depth of field collapses—forms move in flux, suspended in a plane beyond reach, floating within a filmic surface.
This new body of work extends the landscapes undertaken between 2002 – 2005, and moves to a view beyond ground…
Gary Smith
2006, Canberra