4. Cycle - Playing with a ground

I am thrown into thinking more about how my works come about. I am interested in the process, how one work leads to more and one series propels the next. And I am interested in how other artists works come in to influence the work either consciously or subconsciously.

In many recent works I have been cognisant of playing with the yellow ochre ground. I have been leaving present this ground through abstracted strips, objects and flickers within many of the works in this series. This play has been ongoing and evolving for me since studying painting at ANU. There, in my first meeting with Supervisor Ruth Waller, she asked, had I thought to paint grounds in my work.

For one work on the way on the easel in this image above, I decided early on in its making to leave much of the suggested interior walls, floor and ceiling pretty much as is, as the ground.  On top of this ground, I would paint and draw in selected objects and parts of the scene. It did not occur to me at the time, not until talking through this work with my cousin Kiata Mason, that I could as well have come to a similar work if I had looked at Matisse’s “the red studio” and sought to make a work influenced by it. No doubt, like a Beetles song, Matisse’s work is imprinted in my subconscious. As is many others works shaped by his influence. Experienced during my latest exhibition outing with the kids in tow at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery was Brett Whiteley’s Drawing is Everything exhibition - just one case in point.
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This program is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.