WEBVTT
00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:08.400
My guest today is my dear friend, an atlas of creative wisdom, Anna Young.
00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:16.079
She is an Argentinian-born Australian artist based in Sydney whose practice explores time, memory, and silence.
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:28.640
Inspired by the Australian bush, her paintings emerge as contemplative responses rather than depictions, transforming experience into abstraction through layered compositions and diffused forms.
00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:36.640
Painting for Anna is an act of reclaiming slowness, a space where fleeting fragments of time and feeling are given form.
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:44.560
She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Arts School Sydney.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:57.200
Has undertaken residencies across Australia and internationally and is a finalist in numerous major prizes, including the Dobel Drawing Prize, the Mostman Art Prize, and the Fisher's Ghost Art Award.
00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:03.920
Her work is held in public and private collections, including the Mostman Art Gallery in the Western Plains Cultural Centre.
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.879
And the topic I gave her today was quite timely.
00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:09.519
And that topic was residencies.
00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:16.959
Because she has had quite a lot of experience packing her bags and getting things ready to go on residency.
00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.120
So I needed a little bit of help from her.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.599
So let's dive in and enjoy today's conversation.
00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.760
Grab yourself a cupper, and I think you're gonna get a lot out of this one.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:39.599
Hey guys, welcome to Daring Creatively Unfiltered, where I call up an artist friend, throw a surprise topic into the conversation, and hit record.
00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.040
No plan, no prep, no agenda, just two creatives having a chat.
00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:55.439
I'm Karin Morrison, Australian artist, cup overflowing personality, and someone who genuinely gets way too excited talking about the creative life.
00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:59.200
My guests are artists at every stage of the journey.
00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:06.560
And the conversations that happen when nobody's performing, those are the ones that we really need to hear.
00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:10.719
So grab a coffee, get into your studio, and come hang with us.
00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:13.520
This is Daring Creatively Unfiltered.
00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:14.639
Let's go.
00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:22.960
How the hell are you?
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:24.080
I'm good.
00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:25.039
How are you?
00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:26.319
Oh, I'm good.
00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:27.039
I'm good.
00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:33.120
It's been one of those one of those weeks, but it's finally back on track again.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:33.919
How about you?
00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:34.400
Yes.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:36.479
Yes, I've had one of those weeks.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.719
I was trying to finish all the work for the group shot Lake Macquarie, which I've now done.
00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:52.000
And uh had a massive studio cleanup on Friday, and I just about wiped myself out, but I did it.
00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:53.759
So I've come in today.
00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.039
I had a busy weekend, so I've come in today to a very neat, tidy studio.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:00.319
Oh, that's amazing.
00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:01.840
It doesn't it feel so good?
00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:06.159
It feels like you got a fresh start when you bring clean.
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:10.159
It does, and I it actually makes me assess what I've done.
00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:16.400
Like I look at all the paintings, I kind of move them to another room and I I kind of look at everything.
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.520
I think, yeah, no, I've no, that's not finished.
00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:20.479
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:29.919
Which is my way, but I've um I've got currently a lot of a very big painting and two slightly smaller ones that I'm going to I'm working on.
00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:38.960
So they're they just now that the lake Macquarie stuff is all out of the way, I can kind of relax and go nuts in the studio.
00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:49.520
Yeah, and I think as well, like because all of that, um, which you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw the surprise topic on you now because I need your help today.
00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:56.879
Um you're gonna help you're actually gonna help me today because you know you're my my atlas of wisdom that I come to all the time.
00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:58.560
I wouldn't say that.
00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:06.800
You are, you are, but the surprise topic that I wanted to give you today was residencies.
00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:08.080
And okay.
00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:15.439
So the lake Macwork that you're talking about, did that eventuate from a residency?
00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:17.439
Yes, yes, it has.
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.560
Um, the lovely Belinda Street that you also know.
00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:25.519
Um, she or she's she put a proposal to Lake Macquarie.
00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:40.240
Yeah, and uh we there was five of there were five of us, and we we got a two-week residency in February 2005, so we split uh the group.
00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:47.279
Some went on the first week, some went on the second, and we all kind of met up a little bit in the middle as one group left.
00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:56.879
And then I applied to see whether they had another week on my own because I wanted to go back and I love to revisit an area.
00:04:57.040 --> 00:05:05.839
I like to feel that I've got that that that kind of put things into my little brain so I can distill it into the work.
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:12.800
And it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to look at every little bit, but I just wanted to reacquaint myself with the area.
00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:19.199
So that did come out of the residency, and um I was very lucky that they had a spot in March.
00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:24.000
So yeah, so Peter was able to come up with me, which was great.
00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:26.000
And how long was it?
00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:33.439
It was a week this one, but the I mean, um the last one was a week too, because we split the group into two, so a week each.
00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:40.079
So that's two weeks that I've had in one area, which I was able to uh because Lake Macquarie's quite big.
00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:45.680
There's a lot of areas around the lake, so um it was very, very good to go back.
00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:47.279
I got a lot out of it.
00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:54.720
So a lot of the installation, small little two installations I've made came out of the second week.
00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:00.480
I am really curious to see your installations because that's one thing of yours that I haven't.
00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:03.120
How little?
00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:03.920
How little?
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:15.680
Uh they're um they're about the biggest one's 37 is on a circle, so it's 37 by 34, I think, by two two centimeters in depth.
00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:20.879
And the other one's about 30 something by 27 by two in depth.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:24.639
But the difficulty with them was to actually refine them.
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:30.160
I kept they changed about, I mean, it's taken me almost three months to complete them.
00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:39.360
You wouldn't think so, but to actually get what I wanted, and also they're all made with found materials, so that was tricky.
00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:41.839
Um so they're made in two parts.
00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.720
Um, so I've just been talking to our lovely curator too.
00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:52.160
She wanted a little bit more info, and um mainly at install them.
00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:59.360
So um, yeah, there I I have this thing that I like to use found materials.
00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:10.399
I don't like to use any, if I can at all possible, I try to use things that I know I can use myself rather than take them to a fabricator.
00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:20.079
Very occasionally I might, but usually I use all sorts of things that I can cope with and I feel good about the environment.
00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:24.879
I'm not welding, I'm not, they're just very, but that makes it harder.
00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:28.399
What's it where did you find all the found objects?
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:37.040
Well, I had I had one and I had a little box which is one of them, and I I tend to collect a few things.
00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:42.319
I haven't done a lot of installation lately because I've just been so busy painting.
00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:52.879
But um, so I have a little storeroom with bits and pieces, but I found part of the materials from the installation when I was at Lake Macquarie.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:08:03.839
So yeah, so it's it's kind of it really does relate back in a way, although they look very abstract, it relates back to Lake Macquarie a lot.
00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:06.720
Oh, I'm so fascinated to see these.
00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:08.720
You'll have to send me some photos.
00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:19.120
I will at some stage, and I I have to wrap them all up now and that's going to be quite stressful because some of the parts are quite fragile.
00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.399
So I'm going to have to wrap them really carefully.
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:23.920
Are you driving them down?
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:24.720
Are you going to show them?
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:25.839
No, no, I know, I know.
00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:33.759
They're going to one of the people I've have offered to drive them up and and Lake Mac will uh reimburse for the petrol.
00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:35.200
So that's good.
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:41.120
Yeah, that's how yeah, I'd have to really wrap them very, very carefully.
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:44.799
So there's three three lots of things going to Lake Macquarie.
00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:52.399
There's two paintings, two installations, and drawings which I've pre-selected, and they'll probably select from that drawing.
00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:55.919
They don't might not necessarily show any or they might show a couple.
00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:02.000
It just depends on how the curator sees the show when everything else arrives from the other artists.
00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.000
Oh, I'm so excited to see.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:06.320
So is there gonna be a catalogue?
00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:08.879
I think they are publishing a catalogue.
00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:10.159
I'm not sure.
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:11.919
Um usually they do.
00:09:12.159 --> 00:09:12.960
Kara did.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:14.879
Kara did a little catalogue.
00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:23.759
Um, so it's nice to it's an interesting scenario to work with a re this is one of many reja gauries I've worked with.
00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:42.399
And what's really good is that you have got a different, it's not that my work would change because I'm working for a commercial entity, it's what it's just that it gives you an allowance to do a little bit more experimenting, and then that feeds into your other work anyway.
00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:44.080
It's actually a good thing.
00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:57.039
So there are no, you know, it's it's it's a really interesting process in that you don't have to, you're not you're not actually thinking, well, you you are thinking all the time, is this going to work?
00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.360
Because these installations took forever.
00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:03.600
But it does, those installations will then fit into my painting.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:04.480
I know they will.
00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.559
And when I look at them, I see my previous paintings in them.
00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:09.679
It's quite interesting.
00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.200
So it all and the drawings are kind of like the armature, you know, with the drawings.
00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:30.159
It's not necessarily that I'm going to look at the drawings when I paint, but they've created a kind of it create a uh, you know, a a kind of story in there that is in my mind, and I don't have to, it's there, so I don't have to go and look at them in a way.
00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:32.879
Sometimes I might, but they are there.
00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:39.120
And my work is getting a lot more abstract, so I don't know where that will come out eventually.
00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:40.399
It'll come out somewhere.
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:41.279
I know it will.
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:41.840
Yeah, well.
00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.200
Well that's the beauty of the the residencies, isn't it?
00:10:45.279 --> 00:11:01.200
That you step out of the studio and it's like now that I've got the corridor project coming up, I'm like in my head, and because it's come up so quickly, I've had to like I haven't had, you know, six months to kind of plan what I'm gonna do there.
00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:03.120
And so you don't have to plan.
00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:03.600
Don't plan.
00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:08.879
Well, what I thought I what I thought, I think I'm gonna work on paper.
00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:15.039
And I I had like a little bit of a testing thing that's already underway in the studio.
00:11:15.279 --> 00:11:22.080
And funnily enough, I've had this call at the moment to go back out in the landscape and do a lot more plain air work.
00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.159
So this could not come at a better time.
00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:29.919
And I just thought, oh, this is the universal nod saying, Yes, that's what you have to focus on.
00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:39.279
Um so when I like I wanted to get your perspective because you've done the corridor project residency before.
00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:40.000
Yeah.
00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:42.080
And is my thinking correct?
00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:44.080
Because a week is not a lot of time.
00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:45.759
So no, it's not a lot of time.
00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:54.320
We were there for I think it's seven days, but you really only get five because by the time you arrive, and then you pack up on the last day.
00:11:54.639 --> 00:12:02.320
I think um the thing to do, which I find, I found a few spots that I liked, and I just went to them.
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:16.240
And at the time I'd had a knee knee surgery, so I couldn't go down, I couldn't push myself too much in walking down the hill, or you know, so I I found that really useful to be find the spots I liked and just revisit them.
00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:22.240
Because uh what happens when you're out in the landscape, everything changes from hour to from minute to minute.
00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:27.519
So you you don't have time to decide this is you just do it.
00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:37.039
So it's not like you're oh this is the painting I'm creating, or this is the drawing, you're actually recording as you're there, and that's the liberating part.
00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:52.879
You don't have time to criticize yourself, you just do it, you go out there and draw, and it doesn't matter, really, it doesn't matter what they look like, it's what your one moment of engagement or what you're looking at, and that's what I like about a residency.
00:12:52.960 --> 00:13:01.840
And then if I really want to go back, you know, it it's it's a it's a very different landscape too, to to water landscapes.
00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:07.279
It's very it's very inland and very sort of a stoic landscape.
00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:10.240
It's quite it's quite beautiful.
00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:12.639
Um, very, very and the light change.
00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:18.639
So I I I tend to think that when you're doing a residency, that's what you do.
00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:22.000
You're just not worrying about what am I going to do.
00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:27.200
You you might have a plan, you might have a project, but when you get out there, it can all change.
00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:32.000
Well, I think what I'm gonna focus on is just like thumbnail sketches.
00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:38.639
So what I've done is I've got like a few really big sheets of paper, although I might end up just working in the sketchbook.
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:39.440
I don't know yet.
00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:45.360
But what I've done is I've taped them off into like hundreds of little thumbnail sketches.
00:13:45.600 --> 00:14:00.000
And so what I'm gonna do is basically what I normally do when I go out plain air is I'll bring my gouache, my neo colors, and just some pastels and basic like drawing stuff, and I'll just work over the whole surface.
00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:12.879
And so I think my game plan is just to focus on the thumbnail sketches, and my goal would be to do one full sheet a day, and I keep working over the top, and then I'll peel them off at the end.
00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:21.600
And usually what happens with my thumbnail sketches anyway is they become like colour palettes or rough compositions or yeah, all of that.
00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:23.919
And I think it's uh it's amazing.
00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:30.000
I mean, I a lot of people were were trying to do a few people did quite big.
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:37.120
I I think one of the things I say about teacher um doing a workshop is don't try and fit the whole bloody picture in.
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:43.039
There's just just concentrate on one area because that one area can tell you everything.
00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:46.960
To actually try to do it all for me is impossible.
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:58.000
So I find concentrating on a few places and in just engaging with those places is for me personally far more productive than trying to do a bit of everything.
00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:02.159
I just can't advise that I can't do a bit of everything.
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:10.480
Um, so I found one day I went down to the river, and a lot of people were going down to the river, and I had to uh get a lift down.
00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:20.320
I think Elizabeth Cummings got a lift too, and we went down together with David Collins, and I hadn't spent much time at the river, and I thought, no, I'll go back.
00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:21.279
That was enough.
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:27.759
I went back to looking at the rock formations, which to me look like effigies.
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.759
They look like almost human and they've been there for thousands of years.
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.840
So I got that out of the landscape a lot more.
00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:42.799
I just concentrated on that, and that was okay because then I got more out of just looking at that one thing.
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:56.720
And interesting enough, when we went back for the show at the Regional Gallery, we then went and had uh breakfast at uh at uh the Corridor Project, and it was interesting seeing them again without even drawing, just seeing them.
00:15:56.799 --> 00:16:03.679
I I think that sometimes looking is really important, just sitting in a space and looking.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:08.799
So um, that's how I work anyway, but other people worked very differently.
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:12.000
I mean, um, it just it's just how you work.
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:13.600
Some people work very fast.
00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:32.320
I actually did gouaches, I took a few pastels, and I did a lot of black and white sketching, which I then filled in, some very colourful ones, but they were always mostly all referring to the place that placing things in the landscape, how the rocks did that for me.
00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:40.080
But um, so my paint my little paintings I did were three very small ones, and I just concentrated on a few shapes.
00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.039
But everybody, everybody does different stuff, you know.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:48.080
It's it's very it's what how you personally engage with that landscape, I think.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:55.360
What it is that you I think the nice thing about a residence is you I find very quickly, oh, that's really got me.
00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:01.679
But some people get overwhelmed by the whole lot and they want to do it everything, which is fine, and some people can do that.
00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:02.480
I can't.
00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:08.720
I just need to focus on one thing, and I've always been like that.
00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:16.079
So uh I like the residences because they're liberating, you don't put any pressure on yourself to produce.
00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:21.039
It's not about producing, it's about recording in a way.
00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:24.160
And recording you want to record.
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:33.279
Yeah, it's not about you're not going there to there's not an outcome in that you've got, oh, I've got to make seven drawings or ten paintings.
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:33.519
Yeah.
00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:45.759
Some people work that fast, but for me, it's about being in that place and recording what that place gives me, rather than saying, oh, I've got to put, you know, do all of this and I've got to do that.
00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:47.440
I don't operate like that.
00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:49.440
Some people do, I don't.
00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:54.720
So for me, it's about that that being there is the most important thing.
00:17:54.880 --> 00:18:08.640
And then it all if you if you go there and just make your marks, whatever, you are there in that landscape doing it without any preconceived ideas, without anybody tapping on your shoulder and saying, that's right or that's wrong.
00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:09.839
You're just doing it.
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:25.680
Yeah, well, I think what I've I've also been quite intentional about is I haven't done any research as to what it looks like there, what I potentially want to, like what the landscape's like.
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.000
I just think that's what almost peels it.
00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:31.119
Yeah, that I just want to see exactly how it should be.
00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.559
I think that's the good thing about doing a residency.
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:42.559
Quite often, if you don't know the area, uh it's it's kind of it's such a surprise to be in a place like that.
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:53.039
That's the luxury of being able to go to these places and which you might never have gone to or known about unless you did the residency, and that's what the residency gives you.
00:18:53.119 --> 00:19:04.319
It doesn't give you um, you know, I mean, uh it in the Corridor Project has got a very intentional um uh focus on the environment.
00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:17.359
Um so they're very environmentally minded, but you don't necessarily have to do that, but uh if you're trying to start to fill your head with, oh, this and that, it cut for me it almost spoils it.
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.880
I want the surprise of arrival and what is this?
00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:29.440
And you know, there were some buildings there that I loved, and I know that they're not they're kind of man-made, but they're part of the landscape.
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:45.279
And I took some night shots of some of them, which I loved and they loved, and I thought sooner or later I know somewhere that will because they are, I think unintentionally, you know the shapes and the places that you use in your practice.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:47.440
Unconsciously, you're looking for those shapes.
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:49.039
That's exactly right.
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:50.640
That's exactly right.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:20:04.400
Like I'm the landscape, like where I go, like around my local area, like I have a few key spots and I know the different perspectives of those specific areas that I want to focus on.
00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:09.759
And so I think this is gonna be a little bit of a shake up for me because that's good.
00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:10.799
Yeah, I mean it's gonna be fair too.
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:17.759
I mean, my work's got more reduced.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:31.920
Um, but for example, going to Lake Macquarie, two of the works I've done, it's they're they're quite different and very, very in your face almost, but um, they're still very abstract.
00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:37.279
They can read, they read as landscape, but they also read as abstractions.
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:40.720
And um, you know, what is not abstract?
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:43.119
You look at a part of a cloud and it's abstract.
00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:48.319
You look at if you if you put a a little lens on a tree bark, that's abstract.
00:20:48.559 --> 00:21:02.160
So um they're they're very intentionally looking at sky and lake, but they're abstract and they're very, very a lot more not detailed, but a lot more uh what's the word?
00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:12.640
There's a lot of uh kind of construction in them, which in in minnow work there is too, because it's so hard to to actually you shift shapes all the time.
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:18.240
So for example, going to Cara, I know I was looking at shapes because I like shapes.
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:25.119
So whether you like it or not, your sensibility is going to impose itself on what you're looking at.
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:25.759
Yeah.
00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:39.440
So whether you're in Cara or Italy or wherever, you're going to find your eyes, your your emotional content, your mental whatever is going to find where you're at, I think, in your practice.
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:40.240
I think it does.
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:44.880
Unless it's something so different that it's disruptive, which can happen.
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.160
But I find on and it's taken me a while to realize.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:59.039
I mean, I do know now, but there's certain things I'm finding that I know I'm finding because I am engaging with that, which other people might not even look at, you know.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.000
So It's it's an interesting thing, you know.
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:06.079
Is it texture, is it space relationships, is it silence?
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.920
Well, I'm always looking for silence, so and relationships.
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.319
So that's another interesting thing.
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:22.160
So it's wherever you are, I think, regardless of what you're looking at, you're going to zero in on the things that you think, oh yeah, that's that's what I want.
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:34.319
Yeah, funnily enough, it's it's one of those things where like lately, as much as I've been doing my regular like thumbnail sketching practice, I've gone back to doing like a lot of walking drawing.
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:50.799
And actually, like I've got like a little mini series going on that I don't know if it'll ever be seen, but I'm testing some things with other mediums at the moment and using some of T's machines downstairs to kind of excavate in different ways.
00:22:51.039 --> 00:23:01.119
And the way that you know I'm thinking about it is you know, we're kind of telling a story through like the soles of our feet when we're doing these maps.
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:05.759
And yeah, it's like one of my installations has got a little bit to do with that.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:06.480
Oh, really?
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:07.119
That's cool.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:10.559
A little bit, yeah, but it it it's along those lines.
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.279
It's about walking and yeah.
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:15.279
So it I mean, that is the landscape.
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.720
If you're out there and you're there, you are doing all that.
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:24.640
I mean, you're you're feeding the drawing to the soles of your feet, to your brain, through your eyes, to your hand.
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:26.160
It all comes into it.
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:28.559
It's kind of, you know, you can't help it.
00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:32.880
It's you're not just saying, oh, that's four trees and that's green.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:46.160
When I mean that's very basic, but I think if you're walking and absorbing and not thinking too much about whether the tree's crooked or straight because you've depicted it incorrectly, it's all going to still come into the drawing.
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:47.200
It really is.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:48.079
That's it.
00:23:48.720 --> 00:24:01.599
And actually, one just before you keep going, I have to ask one question while it's on the forefront of my mind because I'm curious as about like about how you the order in which you approached your day.
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:05.680
Like, did you work in the mornings and then everyone come together at the end?
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:10.559
I know we're cooking meals together, so each of us are gonna have a night cooking a meal for everybody.
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:11.519
That's what we did.
00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.519
We cooked uh um, we cooked a meal at night in the morning.
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.720
You take your own sort of food for lunch and breakfast.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.799
There's a few supplies of there's a tea and coffee, but you can kind of get stuff.
00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:24.480
There's a shopping centre just down the road.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:26.319
Oh, that's down the road.
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.079
There's a coals, and I think there's even an I'm not sure whether there's an algae.
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:35.039
I think there is, but you kind of come together, you know, you everybody does their own thing.
00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:38.720
Nobody kind of hangs out, oh let's go drawing together.
00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:40.000
It's not about that.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.640
Uh, and there was nine of us, so it was quite a lot.
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:43.680
Oh, that was a lot.
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:45.759
We only have six, yeah.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.119
Nine was a lot.
00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.759
Um, so um we kind of did our own thing.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:25:00.480
Uh, and some people work really well in the morning and not so well in the afternoon, so they might just write or sit or even go for a nap.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.440
Some people get up really early, some get up later.
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:10.400
Um, we all come together at night, um, and definitely like I think out of the nine of us, seven cooked.
00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:10.880
Yeah.
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:13.359
So um that was good.
00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:18.559
We had our night feast and conversations and uh what we did.
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:25.359
And some people didn't, some people actually even worked in the shearing shed, you know, it just depended on what you wanted to do.
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:33.359
And the good thing about that is that it's crappy weather, you have got the shearing shed to look out on or draw, do whatever you want to do.
00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:37.839
I mean, it in itself is a beautiful building, absolutely beautiful.
00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:45.039
So there's a lot you know, there's a lot it doesn't have to be just about sitting outside.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:48.640
You can there's so many things you can sort of absorb.
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:51.359
And yeah, five days is not a lot.
00:25:51.759 --> 00:26:09.200
Um, and that's why I went back to Lake Mac, because I just wanted to solidify a few things, particularly as they were keen for some of us to do installation, because most of the people in this group show at Lake Mac are wall people, they're 2D people.
00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:19.200
So um it was a bit of a challenge because I hadn't done anything and just the ideas that I generated worked very slowly and going back.
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:30.000
I started them up there and they went through so many stages of changes and transformation to get them to where the the installation wanted to go.
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:30.559
Yeah.
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:33.920
And that was too, I just didn't know how they'd end up.
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:41.119
I had some ideas, but it we you know, had to the idea was still there, but I had to keep refining it and refining it and refining it.
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:42.720
So that took a long time.
00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:44.960
That was two or three months of work.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:56.160
What I'm curious about actually with your installations, because with your paintings, and I have a soft spot for your work because I get to look at one of your beautiful paintings every night of the week.
00:26:56.559 --> 00:27:07.039
And one of the things that I'm in love with about your work is that they are less about looking at something and they really do feel immersive.
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:14.960
You feel like you're in the landscape, you're absorbing, you're looking through the light, the yeah, you're looking through it.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:26.960
And so when I think about you and installation, I'm like, ooh, what do we do with Anna's work now that we're not being like consumed by the painting?
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:28.799
Like what I'm really curious about.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:30.960
Well, it's the same thing, actually.
00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:32.799
It's it's it's looking through.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:47.680
And I I'll tell you a story about that years ago when I had my studio at Hill End and I was selected to have a solo show at uh Western Plains Cultural Centre, and I had a fantastic curator working with me called Kent Buchanan, amazing guy.
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:58.240
And every time I had this um sort of kind of thing where I because I find I find painting is the hardest thing, it's always the hardest thing.
00:27:58.559 --> 00:28:05.599
So um when I finished a group of painting, because I was at Helen, I'd go for a lot of walks and I'd find all sorts of things.
00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:13.279
And I my first show out of art school, I did some installations and the the uh sculpture department liked them.
00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:16.240
This is after I left art school, they they really liked them.
00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:19.920
So I kind of didn't pay much attention to them.
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:28.559
And when Kent Buchanan came to the studio to pick my work for the show, he said, I really like those installations, and I still thought they were play.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:39.119
They were like play in between a body of painting work, they were kind of like problem solving, they were and I had all these things I'd found, rusty bits, bones.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:46.880
Um, I had to defy devise a system of joining them together, so twine and all sorts of materials like that came in.
00:28:47.039 --> 00:28:50.880
So I didn't give them much sort of importance really.
00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:56.240
And then another friend of mine, another artist came and he said, You've got to show these.
00:28:56.319 --> 00:28:58.880
I said, Oh no, they're just bits I do in between.
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:07.759
And then Kent Buchanan, after I had a show there, he had a few other shows and he wanted some of those installations and some of my paintings.
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:10.160
And I said, They don't really go together.
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:11.599
He's no, no, no, they do.
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:31.680
And he saw it, and then I started to look, and I saw that some of the same things, that looking through that space, that's that kind of quietness, although they're more complex in some ways, because you see an installation, you see the complexity, whereas in a painting, a lot of the complexity is underneath.
00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:36.640
So the viewer doesn't get to see that, and that's why you get that sense of walking through.
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:42.720
So the installations do um they are good companions to the paintings.
00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:50.079
I didn't realize that for a long time, but these have made now uh you would see the relationship, I think.
00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:52.960
So that's that's an interesting thing.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:30:00.400
I was gonna say, are they similar to your beautiful paperworks that you had in your last solo show in the beautiful perspective?
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:03.519
Kind of then yes and no.
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:11.759
They're they're more like um, you know, your painting, you have them not quite like that, but there's an element of that.
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:12.240
Okay.
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.160
So they're flat, they sit flat, and you you they're very, very they look very plain.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.000
Oh my god, they were not.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:23.359
To actually and a lot of it's to do with the placement.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:41.200
So bit like the painting where they're moving to actually get particularly the new ones, even the one you've got on all of that series, to actually get that relationship between certain elements in the painting, so it does go in and out, is really hard.
00:30:41.519 --> 00:31:02.559
Maybe you should explain that actually, because I think when people actually view your work, one thing I will say is that you have to see Anna's work in the flesh because there is just so much depth in the textures and in the tiny little marks.
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:09.279
And I mean, every single time I look at your work at home, I pick something different out of it that I haven't seen before.
00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:19.359
It's very reassuring when somebody keeps looking because that's my when I buy a work that is my provisor, that that work takes me back all the time.
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:20.240
Oh, 100%.
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:21.279
Same same.
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:23.680
That's what I want to do with my work.
00:31:23.839 --> 00:31:30.319
So I even the new still ones, um, they take so much to get them to that point.
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:41.599
So that thing about looking through is a way of taking you away from a flat canvas where you're looking at something sitting on a canvas.
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:45.279
So you're actually looking beyond the canvas in a way.
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:48.799
So I'm trying to get you to go into that space.
00:31:48.960 --> 00:31:55.680
So I'm it's kind of all this trickery where as a painter you're trying to dissolve the edges.
00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:04.960
You want you want that that little thing you painted or that big thing to be a little world where you're losing the size, you're just entering it.
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:10.559
A bit like what you know, Roscoe did it, Agnes Martin did it, Mirandi did it.
00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:17.359
So that is a really difficult thing, and it's something I've strived for all the time.
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:28.240
And when you're a tonal painter, it's even harder because you're working with these close relationships and you're having to push and pull and push something back.
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:30.400
Is that sitting in the space I want?
00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:35.680
Yeah, you're walking through, like I had one in this very last show in November, which was two arches.
00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:42.240
And it it was actually about are you walking through that space, are you getting into that space?
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:51.200
So that it's always that, and it's always this kind of silence of of being in that space and and slowing you down.
00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:57.519
And that is it's all very well to say it in words, but then practically to do it is difficult.
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:18.319
So it's something that makes me paint because if I didn't have that, I'm looking at this huge one I'm working at the moment, which is almost two metres long, and at the moment it's a mess of marks, and I've got some vision of where I wanted to go, but I don't know until I start layering it where that's going to sit.
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:20.319
Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you.
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:22.319
Do you kind of I never know?
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:23.039
I don't plan.
00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:25.599
You just start, you just start on the canvas.
00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:27.039
Okay, right, right.
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:43.119
And I start with, and what I quite often do, which sounds crazy, but I learned this from John Piat, who's sadly now deceased, and he was an extraordinary painter and a really good model in terms of how he viewed painting and how he thought about painting.
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:57.839
So he used to um have a whole lot of uh canvases and he'd wipe his brushes on one canvas so that if you had too much paint on one brush, you'd go to another empty canvas and wipe it on.
00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:02.559
So you start integrating this volume of marks, which I still do.
00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:10.719
And it's very interesting because what happens is gradually those marks coalesce into something.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:18.800
I do have an idea of what overall of what my work means, but I don't have that idea for each painting.
00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:24.079
I want them to coalesce as a body of work, but I also want them to hold their own space.
00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:31.599
So one of the things I struggle with is having to frame them because I really want them to float.
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:32.079
Yes.
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:44.079
And and if you look at a lot of the painters uh who work like that, like Aida Tomesco, she doesn't frame her work, and the the framing of work is you're boxing it straight away.
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:47.280
Yes, but your frames in the last show.
00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:57.599
This they were, you know, it was the first time I've ever seen someone use a frame like that, and man, yeah, did it work successfully.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:59.599
They were absolutely beautiful.
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:24.159
Yeah, it was quite good, and it was interesting because I knew their work, and I I was in London the year before, and I saw Nagnes Martin in the Totem Modern, and I just adore her work, and it was quite a big painting, and she had a very it was literally a silver strip stuck literally onto the edge of the painting.
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:27.519
It was similar to what I did, only even flatter.
00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:39.360
And I just saw it and I thought, yes, that's that's because I'd already started on my body of work, and I knew that I wanted them to float outside the frame.
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:53.920
So and going back to that show, the drawings in the in the big boxes, that's why I wear the frame like that, because it meant that you were looking at an object, you're looking at a box, but within that there was a kind of a floating sensation.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:54.400
Yeah.
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:11.440
So I wanted that, and that's something that for me is it's a really big struggle because you're working with these sometimes flat surfaces, and then you have to use texture and depth to actually you know how colour gives you depth and all those things.
00:36:11.519 --> 00:36:20.239
So at the moment, I'm as you saw in the last show, they were very quiet areas, and then you went up close and you saw the text in some of the others.
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:27.360
So that holds those very dark, quiet shapes, it gives them gives them weight in a way.
00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:32.079
So that's that's really what I strive for all the time.
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:43.360
Um, so I'm I'm now that I've finished this Lake MAC, I'm I'm actually I've just completed, so I've completed six paintings, two are going to Lake MAC, and I'm working on another three at the moment.
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:45.679
So I tend to work in a group.
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:49.360
And then one might take me over the other one.
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:55.039
But um I like working in a group because then I can't kill them too much.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:56.159
Oh yes.
00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:04.000
I feel like I have been having this murdering of painting discussion constantly lately, but it's okay.
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:08.239
I think I've moved out of the the the well don't know.
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:18.559
I mean, if you did one of those uh photographic uh, you know how they now can run a light over your paintings, they do all the old paintings and they've found other paintings.
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:24.079
If you'd run one of those over some of my paintings, there's 25 layers in some of them.
00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:25.199
100%.
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:37.360
Yeah, and so that's what gives it the weight in a way, and and the the viewer doesn't see that, but photographing those works is near impossible because it flattens, the photo flattens everything.
00:37:37.519 --> 00:37:54.960
So you're not getting that the colour is painters like colouries, they've got colour to kind of get you, you know, that's kind of the the whereas in mine that's not the focal point, so it's it's a it's a s it's a fight to kind of you have to go in and look at them, really.
00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:57.039
Yes, a hundred percent.
00:37:57.119 --> 00:37:57.360
Yeah.
00:37:57.599 --> 00:38:06.960
And I think um we were talking like recently when Aida Tomescu's show was on at Fox Jensen, we both went and had a look.
00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:10.960
And I had this really incredible conversation with her.
00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:13.920
I felt like I'd been touched by the fairy godmother.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:15.440
Yeah, yeah, she's amazing.
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:22.480
About this battle with um allowing things to remain unfinished.
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:40.400
And I said to her, My biggest battle is like, you know, when you have deadlines and you're trying to meet things at a at a deadline, and so inevitably what happens is you start pushing shit uphill because the resistance is building on the fact that they need to get done.
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.639
Yeah, and so you're not creating any space for the work to just allow it to be.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:49.760
You're actually, yeah, you're actually dictating to the work person, you've got to get finished, you've got to get finished.
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:52.639
And that's right, and everything goes backwards.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:04.960
No, so what she said to me on on that um night, she she said, Oh, I never think about finishing my paintings.
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:05.360
No.
00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:08.320
And I thought, oh, that's exactly what I needed to hear it.
00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:09.679
Just so simple.
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:10.880
Yeah, so simple.
00:39:11.119 --> 00:39:23.599
She all yeah, she said to us at art school, I was lucky to have her, and she said, I like to look at a painting where there's a space to go in and there's a possibility of expansion.
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:26.559
So she's she's looking at paintings.
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:32.239
Sometimes a perfect finished painting is chokes you, it doesn't have room for you.
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:33.599
Where do you go in there?
00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:42.159
So she she talks about the possibility of the painting having a continuous life in a way, and that happened to me with the last show.
00:39:42.239 --> 00:39:55.039
The very last painting I was working was a really big one, and it went through so many changes, and I was getting to the point where I think, come on, come on, I've got to finish it in two weeks.
00:39:55.119 --> 00:39:55.599
Come on, come on.
00:39:55.760 --> 00:40:02.400
In the end, I thought this is ridiculous, you've never done this before to yourself.
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:08.800
I got so uptight, so I just let it go, and once I let it go, I just kept working.
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:31.599
Suddenly I could see where I was going wrong, and then the solution came really quickly, and that one was one of the probably the one of the paintings that took me somewhere else, and I had done a little one not unlike that for a Christmas show, which sort of was very bright, but the the shapes and that started to come out there.
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:45.360
But when you move to a very big canvas and you've got all those spaces, and you're only putting three space three three pieces of construction and volume into the canvas, that was hard.
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:54.400
So once I let go of that, you've got to finish it, resolution, resolution, it just suddenly talked, it talked back to me.
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:57.039
And it just, you know, it just talked back to me.
00:40:57.119 --> 00:41:17.840
And that was one thing she she, I mean, I she's an extraordinary woman, artist and knowledgeable, and so um, and I think a lot of artists will tell you that, not just Aida, that when you start to create that sense of, oh, it's I have to complete it, that's the end of it.
00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:36.800
I mean, Philip Augustine, another of my heroes, he um the classic story about him was he he was an insomniac, so he used to paint all night and he painted this fant what he thought was a fantastic painting, and walked in in the morning, he said, No, actually, no, it's not.
00:41:36.960 --> 00:41:42.400
And then and that was one story, but the really classic one, and you can see that in a video.
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:50.719
She actually said he he painted this painting, and he said, Yeah, it was an okay painting, but it was too much like a painting.
00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:51.360
Yes.
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:57.599
So he scraped it all up and he said, I corrected one end, and then I corrected the other, and then I didn't have a painting.
00:41:57.760 --> 00:41:59.119
But he said that was okay.
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:07.760
And then he said, five, six years later, I started to paint the things I corrected because I couldn't live with them at the time.
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:09.360
I wasn't ready for them.
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:09.760
Yeah.
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:13.039
So that's interesting learning.
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:20.639
Uh, you know, I've actually photographed different stages of my painting, and then I look back and I think, maybe I should have left it there, you know.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:21.920
But but that's okay.
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:22.960
It's just a painting.
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:24.400
You're not saving the world.
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:34.079
Um you know, you you can actually it's it's what makes it what makes a better painting to make those mistakes.
00:42:34.320 --> 00:42:39.679
I I find my mistakes are the ones that take me forward always, always, always.
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:45.920
I just suddenly one of the classic ones, and I think Sophie said it in my opening last year.
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:59.199
I I was starting to scrape off some paint, and I had a McDonald's wooden spoon, a wooden fork, and I started to scrape, and I thought, oh, I really like that texture.
00:42:59.840 --> 00:43:04.559
So that was something that I I thought, no, I don't need to get rid of all that paint.
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:09.039
I can texture it in this way through a tunnel's fork.
00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:12.639
But it were it it's just those little things.
00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:14.880
You don't know, you don't know.
00:43:15.039 --> 00:43:28.000
I mean, you may I've got a whole lot of one of the canvases I tore up, I've got strips, I've cut a whole lot of strips of it, and they're like little mini landscapes when I look at the strips, and I I it's quite interesting.
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:29.119
I just cut them up.
00:43:29.199 --> 00:43:30.159
I was going to throw them on.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:32.960
I thought, no, they look interesting, I'll keep them, you know.
00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:33.840
And they're there.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:36.000
I you know, they're just in the studio.
00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:40.800
So it's it's amazing what you find that you didn't know.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:43.199
I think all artists have got their eyes open.
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:45.519
They they take I I take things in.
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:47.599
And Peter says, What are you looking at that for?
00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:50.000
Oh, look at that mark on the floor.
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:58.159
Isn't it's how our our visual intelligence portrays itself on what we're finding.
00:43:58.559 --> 00:44:06.559
And I think I haven't got the enormous technical perfection skills that some painters have.
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:09.440
And I I see what they can paint.
00:44:09.519 --> 00:44:10.559
I think that's amazing.
00:44:10.639 --> 00:44:12.159
I could never do that.
00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:17.920
But then I know also painters who have got enormous technical skill and it gets in the way.
00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:18.320
Yes.
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:21.760
Because it takes them a while to jump out of that.
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:25.199
And I can draw well if I want and all the rest.
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:27.360
But I feel like that's there.
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:28.559
That's the armature.
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:32.159
We've all had to draw, we've all had to learn how to mix paint.
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:34.960
But then it's what you do with that, you know.
00:44:35.119 --> 00:44:44.079
So I think having a lot of technical skill, unless you have the vision to take that further, can be problematic.
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:53.039
Yes, and I think curiosity, I think the thing is it's all at the end of the day, it's all about learning how to be curious again.
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:54.320
Absolutely.
00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:54.960
All the time.
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:09.920
Well, the world's so tight now.
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:16.880
And that's what going back to residency, that's what's good about them, because you're not going there to finish anything.
00:45:16.960 --> 00:45:20.239
You're going there with an element of everything's new.
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:31.119
So everything is going to awaken you something that maybe you didn't see before, even though you might look for a particular shape that you're familiar with, it's going to be different in how it's in that environment.
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:44.639
So that's what um, you know, I actually now, because I've done a couple of residencies last year and this year, I don't really want to do any more because I find that my my cup runneth over.
00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:52.880
I if I do too many, it starts getting a bit it it it doesn't, it decenters me anyway because I've got too much information.
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:56.239
But what I've done will feed me.
00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:58.079
Yeah, it'll feed me.
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:03.519
So uh it was great to go back to Lake Macquarie, really, really good.
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.000
And that'll feed me for a long time.
00:46:06.159 --> 00:46:09.920
I I've got that that sort of memory bank, if you like.
00:46:10.079 --> 00:46:13.679
There's a little sort of part of my brain that's got all those images.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:30.239
And if you've got good photographic memory, you can kind of remember certain things, uh, and also the sketches, but I don't necessarily I'll have them in my studio here and everywhere, but I don't necessarily um look at them when I'm painting.
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:38.000
I might go back and think, oh, I like that intersection there, but I'm not I'm not using all that information to paint the painting.
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:40.000
They start and they're on their own.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:42.000
They're like a different language in a way.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:55.519
Yeah, so I think that's one thing that people ask a lot is that when it comes to thinking in a more abstract way, which this is this is what you're so good at.
00:46:55.920 --> 00:47:02.719
I often get people that ask, well, when you look at a landscape, how do you actually simplify it?
00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:10.800
Like, how do you go from all of this information down to this flattened yeah?
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.880
And so I'm curious to know how you would explain that to someone.
00:47:15.039 --> 00:47:18.079
I know how I explain it to people, but how do you explain that?
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:26.639
Well, the first thing if I were teaching how to the very first pragmatic technical thing is make yourself a viewfinder.
00:47:26.880 --> 00:47:28.320
Oh, is that good?
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:38.639
By a viewfinder, I mean a little square piece of cardboard and you cut a shape out of that that's either square or rectangular, so you've got other panoramic.
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:48.880
So if people are completely bamboozled, which a lot of new painters or new people learning to paint are they look out then thinking, oh my god, look at all of that.
00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:55.760
Get your viewfinder and put that on your landscape and find a little bit, and that's your painting.
00:47:55.920 --> 00:47:57.119
That's number one.
00:47:57.360 --> 00:48:04.880
If you can't, if you yourself can't divide up when you're looking, I can do it now, but a lot of people find that difficult.
00:48:05.199 --> 00:48:17.199
The second thing is that I the way I look at landscape is not just to record it, the landscape has to do something for me, it's got to slow me down.
00:48:17.519 --> 00:48:21.679
So if I'm going into a landscape, I'm not.
00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:28.320
I think in my statement for the last show, I said I'm not doing a mimetic version of the landscape.
00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:35.039
I'm actually doing a version of the landscape and how I respond in that one moment.
00:48:35.119 --> 00:48:45.039
And it's not necessarily a reproduction, it's how what that landscape gives me in that moment, silence, all of those things.
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:51.519
So it's a combination of looking, being, sitting, and I always look for that in a landscape.
00:48:51.679 --> 00:48:56.320
So if I go to a landscape, it has to be something that slows me right down.
00:48:56.480 --> 00:49:05.039
For example, if I go to um Brooklyn, where I go with the drawing group, it's always I look at the mangrove roots.
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:12.239
And that those shapes are abstract, so that immediately takes me to an abstract condition.
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:26.320
Um, you know, it it's all and it's always looking through, it's always that silence of the Australian bush is quite weird, it's quite sort of um it it's straggly, it's untidy.
00:49:26.639 --> 00:49:28.400
You're looking through layers and that.
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:32.559
So I'm looking at layering all the time, which is what you said when you look at mine.
00:49:32.639 --> 00:49:37.840
So there's a sense of space, and for me, the space is silence and slowing down.
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:40.320
So that's the only way I can explain it.
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:42.719
No, that's a great way to explain it.
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:54.239
And the other thing I think sometimes when I'm taking people out plain air on like sketchbook adventures or whatnot, one of the things that I always say is less is more.
00:49:54.320 --> 00:49:56.719
Don't take heaps and heaps of supplies.
00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:00.719
Keep with like a limited amount of notebook.
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:01.039
Yeah.
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:04.480
Sometimes a small notebook and a and a pen is all you need.
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:04.880
Yeah.
00:50:05.039 --> 00:50:06.639
Because you're doing lines and things.
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:20.639
I mean, one of the cases of that when I went to Lake Mike this time, we went to a few different spots, and I was looking very closely at all the she oaks and their movement, and I found this one spot where they were actually growing quite different differently.
00:50:20.719 --> 00:50:27.119
And when I looked at them, I thought, I took these incredible photos, and I thought this is like a Japanese screen.
00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:35.760
They were just so oriental, and that's when you're laying another relationship, another reaction to what's out there.
00:50:35.840 --> 00:50:37.280
It's your reaction.
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:42.559
It's not necessarily what the landscape is, but it's how you see that in that moment.
00:50:43.119 --> 00:50:48.719
So that I did one very, very detailed drawing and one that's just the marks.
00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:52.960
And when I looked at it, it's just the she-oke pin needle swaying.
00:50:53.440 --> 00:51:02.480
And that's that is if you're an abstract painter, that's what you're looking for, that momentary uh engagement that with that space.
00:51:02.559 --> 00:51:06.880
That's not necessarily depicting the space, but how I feel, how I react.
00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:13.760
So I always want to slow down, I always want to be quiet and and just take one little portion of it.
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:17.119
You know, is it and sound, sound's another thing.
00:51:17.199 --> 00:51:22.159
You know, if you're in a landscape and you hear the water moving, how do you paint the water moving?
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:27.519
That's abstract and it's that's a sound thing, and it's a silence too.
00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:29.440
How you know, how do you?
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:37.280
I mean, some of the paint the two paintings I've done for Lake MAC are essentially about the lake and the sky meeting.
00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:38.320
How beautiful.
00:51:38.880 --> 00:51:41.679
So they're shapes, but they're quite wild.
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:44.880
They're a little bit wilder than my last show.
00:51:45.039 --> 00:51:46.480
They're very quiet.
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:50.079
Um sorry, they're not as quiet.
00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:52.000
So there's things like that.
00:51:52.079 --> 00:52:08.079
So when I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, oh, that's a lake, that's a sky, but isn't it interesting that they're meeting or that they're becoming one or that they're moving together, or how do I do I see them optically as one body?
00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:19.440
All of those things come into how I paint the landscape, or how I because essentially, even though my work is very minimal now, it's still influenced by something I saw.
00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:28.559
Everybody paints, you can't not, you know, you might be walking down the street and see a square on the footpath, and you think, oh, that's cool.
00:52:28.719 --> 00:52:30.559
Uh well, why did you notice it?
00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:31.840
Yeah, that's right.
00:52:32.079 --> 00:52:32.559
That's right.
00:52:32.719 --> 00:52:34.639
That's that curiosity piece, isn't it?
00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:35.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:35.679 --> 00:52:39.599
It's all of you know, it's what you were saying about your curiosity podcast.
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:40.719
It's about that.
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:53.760
It's how uh as different artists and for some people, you know, people who are figurative or whatever, the curiosity might be in how to depict uh hand in different ways, you know, all sorts of things.
00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:55.760
It's just what you find.
00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:00.880
And for me, abstraction is just such a it's another world, really.
00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:05.920
I think in a book that I was in, I wrote it's learning another language.
00:53:06.239 --> 00:53:07.280
Yes, which it is.
00:53:07.440 --> 00:53:09.599
It's it a hundred percent is.
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:11.440
Yeah, and it's it's hard.
00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:14.320
You've got to have all the other stuff before you get to that.
00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:15.440
Yeah.
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:23.119
Well, I think I think in fish finishing up today, here are the takeaways that I've pulled out of this conversation.
00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:27.840
One, I am gonna bring my viewfinder because it stays in the back of my sketchbook the whole time.
00:53:29.199 --> 00:53:31.599
Yeah, mine, you know, and mine actually changes.
00:53:31.760 --> 00:53:33.440
I can pull it like in or out.
00:53:33.599 --> 00:53:36.639
It's like a plastic one that has like one of those slidey things.
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:38.239
So it's quite handy.
00:53:38.480 --> 00:53:39.360
So I've got that.
00:53:39.519 --> 00:53:45.280
So I'm gonna take my viewfinder, I'm gonna take my gouaches, and I'm gonna take basic drawing materials.
00:53:45.519 --> 00:53:49.440
I'm not even gonna allow myself to take acrylic because that's too much.
00:53:49.760 --> 00:53:51.199
No, acrylic's too hard.
00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:54.880
I find it too hard because once it's dry, it's dry.
00:53:55.119 --> 00:53:55.360
Yeah.
00:53:55.599 --> 00:53:58.239
So gouache is so malleable, you know.
00:53:58.559 --> 00:53:59.760
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:02.239
At least with the gouache, I can like keep it.
00:54:02.320 --> 00:54:07.280
Oh, you can just keep working, you can run the tap over it, you can do whatever you like with it.
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:10.239
I a lot of people are frightened of gouache, but I love it.
00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:12.719
I've been using it for years, it's just fantastic.
00:54:13.039 --> 00:54:15.360
Well, it's handy because it just keeps reactivating.
00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:21.199
You can take it, take it out, and you can keep the same paint on the palate and you're good to go.
00:54:21.519 --> 00:54:22.800
Yeah, absolutely.
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:26.320
And whereas watercolour is a lot more tricky.
00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:29.440
Um I I think gouache is very forgiving.
00:54:29.519 --> 00:54:33.119
And just, you know, uh a few pens, a few pencils.
00:54:33.199 --> 00:54:50.480
Uh I I had some oil pastel and pastel, which I took, and I took a black pen, which I used a lot, uh, a nice gel pen, and I did and also for the drawings at Lake Mac, I used a lot, I did a lot of black and white drawing because I wanted this I wanted to see how the structures worked.
00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:57.519
You know, I was talking about relationships and structures, so the relationship between tree trunks and the space behind.
00:54:57.679 --> 00:55:01.760
So sometimes if you put too much down, you don't see that, you're covering it.
00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:04.559
So by it's like negative and positive space.
00:55:04.719 --> 00:55:08.880
So the the uh in a way that feeds into installations too.
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:11.280
So there's a lot of positive and negative space.
00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:23.920
So yeah, I think I would I'll focus on that, and then I think the the other thing that I've taken out of this conversation is to document, not produce.
00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:28.320
So I'm just gonna use it as an opportunity to do all my work.
00:55:28.719 --> 00:55:34.400
Don't don't think about the word production in itself is a is a difficult word for me.
00:55:34.719 --> 00:55:39.360
You're not producing, you're actually engaging, you're investigating.
00:55:39.440 --> 00:55:40.239
That's a better word.
00:55:40.400 --> 00:55:40.639
Yeah.
00:55:41.519 --> 00:55:41.920
Love it.
00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:43.679
Yeah, yeah, that's sort of that.
00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:47.360
That's I never go on any expectations when I go on these plays.
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:52.800
And quite often I find the first time a bit tight, the first few drawings, and then I just think, oh, what the hell?
00:55:52.880 --> 00:55:57.199
And I let go, and I start to really look and pick what I want.
00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:59.679
And that's that's when you're kind of doing stuff.
00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:12.320
And when I just don't worry about I don't like the idea of show and tell comparing to other artists, I like to I mean, I'm it's f I'm fine with it, but I always find that a little bit less intimidating.
00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:16.800
I think it's such a personal thing when you're working like that.
00:56:17.199 --> 00:56:25.920
Um, that immediately the minute somebody's oh, let's do show and tell, it's it's okay, but I find it a bit com like a comparison.
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:27.840
So that's my personal reaction.
00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:35.679
I get very oh, you know, um, because I don't necessarily do uh a lot of detailed drawings.
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:42.480
So I think, oh gosh, you know, but anyway, look, I think everybody you might find people may not draw at all.
00:56:42.559 --> 00:56:45.039
They might just do installation, gather things.
00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:50.000
It's it's it doesn't matter what you do, but you are there, and that's the important thing.
00:56:50.320 --> 00:57:06.880
Yeah, just be present to that landscape and use the time to fill my well, and it will be the first time since like having my daughter that I've been able to like just be somewhere separate from the studio, which I'm really excited.
00:57:07.280 --> 00:57:14.079
Number one thing, because we all work in our little caves, and that I tend I tend to I can be a bit difficult.
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:16.880
I can get into my cave and not want to see anything or anybody.
00:57:17.039 --> 00:57:31.920
So to actually put yourself in a situation where you are you are sharing with other artists, there's some great conversations that come out, and that's a sharing of of knowledge of you know, just conversation, which is really, really important.
00:57:32.079 --> 00:57:33.360
It's really, really good.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:39.119
So that's that in itself is one of the valuable things of a of uh residence.
00:57:39.679 --> 00:57:42.000
Even that alone is valuable, you know.
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:53.360
And I like I know so obviously I know Susie Jureau and um uh and beautiful Marissa Bell, but the others I haven't met in person, so it's gonna be really good.
00:57:53.840 --> 00:58:00.960
Yeah, I didn't know I had met Sophie, um I didn't know Kate Dorrow at all.
00:58:01.199 --> 00:58:07.920
Um I didn't know Leah, I'd met Leah once, but I didn't really know her, and we became really good pals.
00:58:08.079 --> 00:58:12.880
It was a really nice thing to to have that experience without it.
00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:15.760
And even if you don't see them much again, it doesn't matter.
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:20.719
You've had those moments together and that conversation, that's important, you know.
00:58:20.960 --> 00:58:22.239
Yeah, it's gonna be really valuable.
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:24.320
That'll be fabulous, you'll love it.
00:58:24.559 --> 00:58:26.719
Yes, it's gonna be a bit chilly, I think.
00:58:26.800 --> 00:58:29.440
So I'm gonna have to pack some winter woolies.
00:58:29.840 --> 00:58:33.280
Yes, put a take a hat because your extremities get cold.
00:58:33.519 --> 00:58:36.079
If you've got half mittens, yeah.
00:58:36.400 --> 00:58:42.400
Yeah, that's cut off ones that I usually use when I'm out playing them, so I have to pull those out again.
00:58:42.639 --> 00:58:43.679
Yeah, yeah, they're good.
00:58:43.760 --> 00:58:45.199
Yeah, I've got a pair like that.
00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:47.199
Thank you for taking the time.
00:58:49.760 --> 00:58:51.360
Yeah, so that's not far off.
00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:59.199
It's a no, it's literally like I think I've got like this week and next week, and then I'll be there.
00:58:59.440 --> 00:59:01.280
Yeah, so you'll love it.
00:59:01.519 --> 00:59:10.000
It'll be it'll be really, really wonderful, and um, you're it it's always a growing experience no matter what you get.
00:59:10.079 --> 00:59:16.800
I mean, I had a fairly difficult time up there because I had a bad knee and my husband wasn't well, but I still got a lot out of it.
00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:18.559
You're still you're there, you know.
00:59:19.039 --> 00:59:20.960
It's amazing, it's really, really good.
00:59:21.199 --> 00:59:23.679
Yeah, you have a good day.
00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:25.199
Yeah, no worries.
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:26.960
I'm gonna get back to painting.
00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:28.079
Yeah, me too.
00:59:28.159 --> 00:59:32.800
About I'm looking at these and thinking they're not painting themselves, so I'd better do something.
00:59:33.119 --> 00:59:33.599
Yeah.
00:59:34.480 --> 00:59:35.119
Same here.
00:59:35.360 --> 00:59:35.920
Same here.
00:59:36.159 --> 00:59:36.400
Okay.
00:59:36.800 --> 00:59:38.079
I'll tell you soon.
00:59:38.320 --> 00:59:38.559
See you.
00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:38.960
Okay.
00:59:39.760 --> 00:59:40.320
Bye.
00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:08.400
My guest today is my dear friend, an atlas of creative wisdom, Anna Young.
00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:16.079
She is an Argentinian-born Australian artist based in Sydney whose practice explores time, memory, and silence.
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:28.640
Inspired by the Australian bush, her paintings emerge as contemplative responses rather than depictions, transforming experience into abstraction through layered compositions and diffused forms.
00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:36.640
Painting for Anna is an act of reclaiming slowness, a space where fleeting fragments of time and feeling are given form.
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:44.560
She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Arts School Sydney.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:57.200
Has undertaken residencies across Australia and internationally and is a finalist in numerous major prizes, including the Dobel Drawing Prize, the Mostman Art Prize, and the Fisher's Ghost Art Award.
00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:03.920
Her work is held in public and private collections, including the Mostman Art Gallery in the Western Plains Cultural Centre.
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.879
And the topic I gave her today was quite timely.
00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:09.519
And that topic was residencies.
00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:16.959
Because she has had quite a lot of experience packing her bags and getting things ready to go on residency.
00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.120
So I needed a little bit of help from her.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.599
So let's dive in and enjoy today's conversation.
00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.760
Grab yourself a cupper, and I think you're gonna get a lot out of this one.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:39.599
Hey guys, welcome to Daring Creatively Unfiltered, where I call up an artist friend, throw a surprise topic into the conversation, and hit record.
00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.040
No plan, no prep, no agenda, just two creatives having a chat.
00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:55.439
I'm Karin Morrison, Australian artist, cup overflowing personality, and someone who genuinely gets way too excited talking about the creative life.
00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:59.200
My guests are artists at every stage of the journey.
00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:06.560
And the conversations that happen when nobody's performing, those are the ones that we really need to hear.
00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:10.719
So grab a coffee, get into your studio, and come hang with us.
00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:13.520
This is Daring Creatively Unfiltered.
00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:14.639
Let's go.
00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:22.960
How the hell are you?
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:24.080
I'm good.
00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:25.039
How are you?
00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:26.319
Oh, I'm good.
00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:27.039
I'm good.
00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:33.120
It's been one of those one of those weeks, but it's finally back on track again.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:33.919
How about you?
00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:34.400
Yes.
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:36.479
Yes, I've had one of those weeks.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.719
I was trying to finish all the work for the group shot Lake Macquarie, which I've now done.
00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:52.000
And uh had a massive studio cleanup on Friday, and I just about wiped myself out, but I did it.
00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:53.759
So I've come in today.
00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.039
I had a busy weekend, so I've come in today to a very neat, tidy studio.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:00.319
Oh, that's amazing.
00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:01.840
It doesn't it feel so good?
00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:06.159
It feels like you got a fresh start when you bring clean.
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:10.159
It does, and I it actually makes me assess what I've done.
00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:16.400
Like I look at all the paintings, I kind of move them to another room and I I kind of look at everything.
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.520
I think, yeah, no, I've no, that's not finished.
00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:20.479
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:29.919
Which is my way, but I've um I've got currently a lot of a very big painting and two slightly smaller ones that I'm going to I'm working on.
00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:38.960
So they're they just now that the lake Macquarie stuff is all out of the way, I can kind of relax and go nuts in the studio.
00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:49.520
Yeah, and I think as well, like because all of that, um, which you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw the surprise topic on you now because I need your help today.
00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:56.879
Um you're gonna help you're actually gonna help me today because you know you're my my atlas of wisdom that I come to all the time.
00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:58.560
I wouldn't say that.
00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:06.800
You are, you are, but the surprise topic that I wanted to give you today was residencies.
00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:08.080
And okay.
00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:15.439
So the lake Macwork that you're talking about, did that eventuate from a residency?
00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:17.439
Yes, yes, it has.
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.560
Um, the lovely Belinda Street that you also know.
00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:25.519
Um, she or she's she put a proposal to Lake Macquarie.
00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:40.240
Yeah, and uh we there was five of there were five of us, and we we got a two-week residency in February 2005, so we split uh the group.
00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:47.279
Some went on the first week, some went on the second, and we all kind of met up a little bit in the middle as one group left.
00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:56.879
And then I applied to see whether they had another week on my own because I wanted to go back and I love to revisit an area.
00:04:57.040 --> 00:05:05.839
I like to feel that I've got that that that kind of put things into my little brain so I can distill it into the work.
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:12.800
And it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to look at every little bit, but I just wanted to reacquaint myself with the area.
00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:19.199
So that did come out of the residency, and um I was very lucky that they had a spot in March.
00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:24.000
So yeah, so Peter was able to come up with me, which was great.
00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:26.000
And how long was it?
00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:33.439
It was a week this one, but the I mean, um the last one was a week too, because we split the group into two, so a week each.
00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:40.079
So that's two weeks that I've had in one area, which I was able to uh because Lake Macquarie's quite big.
00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:45.680
There's a lot of areas around the lake, so um it was very, very good to go back.
00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:47.279
I got a lot out of it.
00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:54.720
So a lot of the installation, small little two installations I've made came out of the second week.
00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:00.480
I am really curious to see your installations because that's one thing of yours that I haven't.
00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:03.120
How little?
00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:03.920
How little?
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:15.680
Uh they're um they're about the biggest one's 37 is on a circle, so it's 37 by 34, I think, by two two centimeters in depth.
00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:20.879
And the other one's about 30 something by 27 by two in depth.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:24.639
But the difficulty with them was to actually refine them.
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:30.160
I kept they changed about, I mean, it's taken me almost three months to complete them.
00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:39.360
You wouldn't think so, but to actually get what I wanted, and also they're all made with found materials, so that was tricky.
00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:41.839
Um so they're made in two parts.
00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.720
Um, so I've just been talking to our lovely curator too.
00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:52.160
She wanted a little bit more info, and um mainly at install them.
00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:59.360
So um, yeah, there I I have this thing that I like to use found materials.
00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:10.399
I don't like to use any, if I can at all possible, I try to use things that I know I can use myself rather than take them to a fabricator.
00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:20.079
Very occasionally I might, but usually I use all sorts of things that I can cope with and I feel good about the environment.
00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:24.879
I'm not welding, I'm not, they're just very, but that makes it harder.
00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:28.399
What's it where did you find all the found objects?
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:37.040
Well, I had I had one and I had a little box which is one of them, and I I tend to collect a few things.
00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:42.319
I haven't done a lot of installation lately because I've just been so busy painting.
00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:52.879
But um, so I have a little storeroom with bits and pieces, but I found part of the materials from the installation when I was at Lake Macquarie.
00:07:53.600 --> 00:08:03.839
So yeah, so it's it's kind of it really does relate back in a way, although they look very abstract, it relates back to Lake Macquarie a lot.
00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:06.720
Oh, I'm so fascinated to see these.
00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:08.720
You'll have to send me some photos.
00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:19.120
I will at some stage, and I I have to wrap them all up now and that's going to be quite stressful because some of the parts are quite fragile.
00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.399
So I'm going to have to wrap them really carefully.
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:23.920
Are you driving them down?
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:24.720
Are you going to show them?
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:25.839
No, no, I know, I know.
00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:33.759
They're going to one of the people I've have offered to drive them up and and Lake Mac will uh reimburse for the petrol.
00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:35.200
So that's good.
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:41.120
Yeah, that's how yeah, I'd have to really wrap them very, very carefully.
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:44.799
So there's three three lots of things going to Lake Macquarie.
00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:52.399
There's two paintings, two installations, and drawings which I've pre-selected, and they'll probably select from that drawing.
00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:55.919
They don't might not necessarily show any or they might show a couple.
00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:02.000
It just depends on how the curator sees the show when everything else arrives from the other artists.
00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.000
Oh, I'm so excited to see.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:06.320
So is there gonna be a catalogue?
00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:08.879
I think they are publishing a catalogue.
00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:10.159
I'm not sure.
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:11.919
Um usually they do.
00:09:12.159 --> 00:09:12.960
Kara did.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:14.879
Kara did a little catalogue.
00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:23.759
Um, so it's nice to it's an interesting scenario to work with a re this is one of many reja gauries I've worked with.
00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:42.399
And what's really good is that you have got a different, it's not that my work would change because I'm working for a commercial entity, it's what it's just that it gives you an allowance to do a little bit more experimenting, and then that feeds into your other work anyway.
00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:44.080
It's actually a good thing.
00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:57.039
So there are no, you know, it's it's it's a really interesting process in that you don't have to, you're not you're not actually thinking, well, you you are thinking all the time, is this going to work?
00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.360
Because these installations took forever.
00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:03.600
But it does, those installations will then fit into my painting.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:04.480
I know they will.
00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.559
And when I look at them, I see my previous paintings in them.
00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:09.679
It's quite interesting.
00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.200
So it all and the drawings are kind of like the armature, you know, with the drawings.
00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:30.159
It's not necessarily that I'm going to look at the drawings when I paint, but they've created a kind of it create a uh, you know, a a kind of story in there that is in my mind, and I don't have to, it's there, so I don't have to go and look at them in a way.
00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:32.879
Sometimes I might, but they are there.
00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:39.120
And my work is getting a lot more abstract, so I don't know where that will come out eventually.
00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:40.399
It'll come out somewhere.
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:41.279
I know it will.
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:41.840
Yeah, well.
00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.200
Well that's the beauty of the the residencies, isn't it?
00:10:45.279 --> 00:11:01.200
That you step out of the studio and it's like now that I've got the corridor project coming up, I'm like in my head, and because it's come up so quickly, I've had to like I haven't had, you know, six months to kind of plan what I'm gonna do there.
00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:03.120
And so you don't have to plan.
00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:03.600
Don't plan.
00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:08.879
Well, what I thought I what I thought, I think I'm gonna work on paper.
00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:15.039
And I I had like a little bit of a testing thing that's already underway in the studio.
00:11:15.279 --> 00:11:22.080
And funnily enough, I've had this call at the moment to go back out in the landscape and do a lot more plain air work.
00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.159
So this could not come at a better time.
00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:29.919
And I just thought, oh, this is the universal nod saying, Yes, that's what you have to focus on.
00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:39.279
Um so when I like I wanted to get your perspective because you've done the corridor project residency before.
00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:40.000
Yeah.
00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:42.080
And is my thinking correct?
00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:44.080
Because a week is not a lot of time.
00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:45.759
So no, it's not a lot of time.
00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:54.320
We were there for I think it's seven days, but you really only get five because by the time you arrive, and then you pack up on the last day.
00:11:54.639 --> 00:12:02.320
I think um the thing to do, which I find, I found a few spots that I liked, and I just went to them.
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:16.240
And at the time I'd had a knee knee surgery, so I couldn't go down, I couldn't push myself too much in walking down the hill, or you know, so I I found that really useful to be find the spots I liked and just revisit them.
00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:22.240
Because uh what happens when you're out in the landscape, everything changes from hour to from minute to minute.
00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:27.519
So you you don't have time to decide this is you just do it.
00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:37.039
So it's not like you're oh this is the painting I'm creating, or this is the drawing, you're actually recording as you're there, and that's the liberating part.
00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:52.879
You don't have time to criticize yourself, you just do it, you go out there and draw, and it doesn't matter, really, it doesn't matter what they look like, it's what your one moment of engagement or what you're looking at, and that's what I like about a residency.
00:12:52.960 --> 00:13:01.840
And then if I really want to go back, you know, it it's it's a it's a very different landscape too, to to water landscapes.
00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:07.279
It's very it's very inland and very sort of a stoic landscape.
00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:10.240
It's quite it's quite beautiful.
00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:12.639
Um, very, very and the light change.
00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:18.639
So I I I tend to think that when you're doing a residency, that's what you do.
00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:22.000
You're just not worrying about what am I going to do.
00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:27.200
You you might have a plan, you might have a project, but when you get out there, it can all change.
00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:32.000
Well, I think what I'm gonna focus on is just like thumbnail sketches.
00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:38.639
So what I've done is I've got like a few really big sheets of paper, although I might end up just working in the sketchbook.
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:39.440
I don't know yet.
00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:45.360
But what I've done is I've taped them off into like hundreds of little thumbnail sketches.
00:13:45.600 --> 00:14:00.000
And so what I'm gonna do is basically what I normally do when I go out plain air is I'll bring my gouache, my neo colors, and just some pastels and basic like drawing stuff, and I'll just work over the whole surface.
00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:12.879
And so I think my game plan is just to focus on the thumbnail sketches, and my goal would be to do one full sheet a day, and I keep working over the top, and then I'll peel them off at the end.
00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:21.600
And usually what happens with my thumbnail sketches anyway is they become like colour palettes or rough compositions or yeah, all of that.
00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:23.919
And I think it's uh it's amazing.
00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:30.000
I mean, I a lot of people were were trying to do a few people did quite big.
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:37.120
I I think one of the things I say about teacher um doing a workshop is don't try and fit the whole bloody picture in.
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:43.039
There's just just concentrate on one area because that one area can tell you everything.
00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:46.960
To actually try to do it all for me is impossible.
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:58.000
So I find concentrating on a few places and in just engaging with those places is for me personally far more productive than trying to do a bit of everything.
00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:02.159
I just can't advise that I can't do a bit of everything.
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:10.480
Um, so I found one day I went down to the river, and a lot of people were going down to the river, and I had to uh get a lift down.
00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:20.320
I think Elizabeth Cummings got a lift too, and we went down together with David Collins, and I hadn't spent much time at the river, and I thought, no, I'll go back.
00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:21.279
That was enough.
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:27.759
I went back to looking at the rock formations, which to me look like effigies.
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.759
They look like almost human and they've been there for thousands of years.
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.840
So I got that out of the landscape a lot more.
00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:42.799
I just concentrated on that, and that was okay because then I got more out of just looking at that one thing.
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:56.720
And interesting enough, when we went back for the show at the Regional Gallery, we then went and had uh breakfast at uh at uh the Corridor Project, and it was interesting seeing them again without even drawing, just seeing them.
00:15:56.799 --> 00:16:03.679
I I think that sometimes looking is really important, just sitting in a space and looking.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:08.799
So um, that's how I work anyway, but other people worked very differently.
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:12.000
I mean, um, it just it's just how you work.
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:13.600
Some people work very fast.
00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:32.320
I actually did gouaches, I took a few pastels, and I did a lot of black and white sketching, which I then filled in, some very colourful ones, but they were always mostly all referring to the place that placing things in the landscape, how the rocks did that for me.
00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:40.080
But um, so my paint my little paintings I did were three very small ones, and I just concentrated on a few shapes.
00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.039
But everybody, everybody does different stuff, you know.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:48.080
It's it's very it's what how you personally engage with that landscape, I think.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:55.360
What it is that you I think the nice thing about a residence is you I find very quickly, oh, that's really got me.
00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:01.679
But some people get overwhelmed by the whole lot and they want to do it everything, which is fine, and some people can do that.
00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:02.480
I can't.
00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:08.720
I just need to focus on one thing, and I've always been like that.
00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:16.079
So uh I like the residences because they're liberating, you don't put any pressure on yourself to produce.
00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:21.039
It's not about producing, it's about recording in a way.
00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:24.160
And recording you want to record.
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:33.279
Yeah, it's not about you're not going there to there's not an outcome in that you've got, oh, I've got to make seven drawings or ten paintings.
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:33.519
Yeah.
00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:45.759
Some people work that fast, but for me, it's about being in that place and recording what that place gives me, rather than saying, oh, I've got to put, you know, do all of this and I've got to do that.
00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:47.440
I don't operate like that.
00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:49.440
Some people do, I don't.
00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:54.720
So for me, it's about that that being there is the most important thing.
00:17:54.880 --> 00:18:08.640
And then it all if you if you go there and just make your marks, whatever, you are there in that landscape doing it without any preconceived ideas, without anybody tapping on your shoulder and saying, that's right or that's wrong.
00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:09.839
You're just doing it.
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:25.680
Yeah, well, I think what I've I've also been quite intentional about is I haven't done any research as to what it looks like there, what I potentially want to, like what the landscape's like.
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.000
I just think that's what almost peels it.
00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:31.119
Yeah, that I just want to see exactly how it should be.
00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.559
I think that's the good thing about doing a residency.
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:42.559
Quite often, if you don't know the area, uh it's it's kind of it's such a surprise to be in a place like that.
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:53.039
That's the luxury of being able to go to these places and which you might never have gone to or known about unless you did the residency, and that's what the residency gives you.
00:18:53.119 --> 00:19:04.319
It doesn't give you um, you know, I mean, uh it in the Corridor Project has got a very intentional um uh focus on the environment.
00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:17.359
Um so they're very environmentally minded, but you don't necessarily have to do that, but uh if you're trying to start to fill your head with, oh, this and that, it cut for me it almost spoils it.
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:20.880
I want the surprise of arrival and what is this?
00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:29.440
And you know, there were some buildings there that I loved, and I know that they're not they're kind of man-made, but they're part of the landscape.
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:45.279
And I took some night shots of some of them, which I loved and they loved, and I thought sooner or later I know somewhere that will because they are, I think unintentionally, you know the shapes and the places that you use in your practice.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:47.440
Unconsciously, you're looking for those shapes.
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:49.039
That's exactly right.
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:50.640
That's exactly right.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:20:04.400
Like I'm the landscape, like where I go, like around my local area, like I have a few key spots and I know the different perspectives of those specific areas that I want to focus on.
00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:09.759
And so I think this is gonna be a little bit of a shake up for me because that's good.
00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:10.799
Yeah, I mean it's gonna be fair too.
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:17.759
I mean, my work's got more reduced.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:31.920
Um, but for example, going to Lake Macquarie, two of the works I've done, it's they're they're quite different and very, very in your face almost, but um, they're still very abstract.
00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:37.279
They can read, they read as landscape, but they also read as abstractions.
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:40.720
And um, you know, what is not abstract?
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:43.119
You look at a part of a cloud and it's abstract.
00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:48.319
You look at if you if you put a a little lens on a tree bark, that's abstract.
00:20:48.559 --> 00:21:02.160
So um they're they're very intentionally looking at sky and lake, but they're abstract and they're very, very a lot more not detailed, but a lot more uh what's the word?
00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:12.640
There's a lot of uh kind of construction in them, which in in minnow work there is too, because it's so hard to to actually you shift shapes all the time.
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:18.240
So for example, going to Cara, I know I was looking at shapes because I like shapes.
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:25.119
So whether you like it or not, your sensibility is going to impose itself on what you're looking at.
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:25.759
Yeah.
00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:39.440
So whether you're in Cara or Italy or wherever, you're going to find your eyes, your your emotional content, your mental whatever is going to find where you're at, I think, in your practice.
00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:40.240
I think it does.
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:44.880
Unless it's something so different that it's disruptive, which can happen.
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.160
But I find on and it's taken me a while to realize.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:59.039
I mean, I do know now, but there's certain things I'm finding that I know I'm finding because I am engaging with that, which other people might not even look at, you know.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.000
So It's it's an interesting thing, you know.
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:06.079
Is it texture, is it space relationships, is it silence?
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.920
Well, I'm always looking for silence, so and relationships.
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.319
So that's another interesting thing.
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:22.160
So it's wherever you are, I think, regardless of what you're looking at, you're going to zero in on the things that you think, oh yeah, that's that's what I want.
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:34.319
Yeah, funnily enough, it's it's one of those things where like lately, as much as I've been doing my regular like thumbnail sketching practice, I've gone back to doing like a lot of walking drawing.
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:50.799
And actually, like I've got like a little mini series going on that I don't know if it'll ever be seen, but I'm testing some things with other mediums at the moment and using some of T's machines downstairs to kind of excavate in different ways.
00:22:51.039 --> 00:23:01.119
And the way that you know I'm thinking about it is you know, we're kind of telling a story through like the soles of our feet when we're doing these maps.
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:05.759
And yeah, it's like one of my installations has got a little bit to do with that.
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:06.480
Oh, really?
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:07.119
That's cool.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:10.559
A little bit, yeah, but it it it's along those lines.
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.279
It's about walking and yeah.
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:15.279
So it I mean, that is the landscape.
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.720
If you're out there and you're there, you are doing all that.
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:24.640
I mean, you're you're feeding the drawing to the soles of your feet, to your brain, through your eyes, to your hand.
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:26.160
It all comes into it.
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:28.559
It's kind of, you know, you can't help it.
00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:32.880
It's you're not just saying, oh, that's four trees and that's green.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:46.160
When I mean that's very basic, but I think if you're walking and absorbing and not thinking too much about whether the tree's crooked or straight because you've depicted it incorrectly, it's all going to still come into the drawing.
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:47.200
It really is.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:48.079
That's it.
00:23:48.720 --> 00:24:01.599
And actually, one just before you keep going, I have to ask one question while it's on the forefront of my mind because I'm curious as about like about how you the order in which you approached your day.
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:05.680
Like, did you work in the mornings and then everyone come together at the end?
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:10.559
I know we're cooking meals together, so each of us are gonna have a night cooking a meal for everybody.
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:11.519
That's what we did.
00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.519
We cooked uh um, we cooked a meal at night in the morning.
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.720
You take your own sort of food for lunch and breakfast.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.799
There's a few supplies of there's a tea and coffee, but you can kind of get stuff.
00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:24.480
There's a shopping centre just down the road.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:26.319
Oh, that's down the road.
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.079
There's a coals, and I think there's even an I'm not sure whether there's an algae.
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:35.039
I think there is, but you kind of come together, you know, you everybody does their own thing.
00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:38.720
Nobody kind of hangs out, oh let's go drawing together.
00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:40.000
It's not about that.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.640
Uh, and there was nine of us, so it was quite a lot.
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:43.680
Oh, that was a lot.
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:45.759
We only have six, yeah.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.119
Nine was a lot.
00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.759
Um, so um we kind of did our own thing.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:25:00.480
Uh, and some people work really well in the morning and not so well in the afternoon, so they might just write or sit or even go for a nap.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.440
Some people get up really early, some get up later.
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:10.400
Um, we all come together at night, um, and definitely like I think out of the nine of us, seven cooked.
00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:10.880
Yeah.
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:13.359
So um that was good.
00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:18.559
We had our night feast and conversations and uh what we did.
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:25.359
And some people didn't, some people actually even worked in the shearing shed, you know, it just depended on what you wanted to do.
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:33.359
And the good thing about that is that it's crappy weather, you have got the shearing shed to look out on or draw, do whatever you want to do.
00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:37.839
I mean, it in itself is a beautiful building, absolutely beautiful.
00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:45.039
So there's a lot you know, there's a lot it doesn't have to be just about sitting outside.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:48.640
You can there's so many things you can sort of absorb.
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:51.359
And yeah, five days is not a lot.
00:25:51.759 --> 00:26:09.200
Um, and that's why I went back to Lake Mac, because I just wanted to solidify a few things, particularly as they were keen for some of us to do installation, because most of the people in this group show at Lake Mac are wall people, they're 2D people.
00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:19.200
So um it was a bit of a challenge because I hadn't done anything and just the ideas that I generated worked very slowly and going back.
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:30.000
I started them up there and they went through so many stages of changes and transformation to get them to where the the installation wanted to go.
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:30.559
Yeah.
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:33.920
And that was too, I just didn't know how they'd end up.
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:41.119
I had some ideas, but it we you know, had to the idea was still there, but I had to keep refining it and refining it and refining it.
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:42.720
So that took a long time.
00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:44.960
That was two or three months of work.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:56.160
What I'm curious about actually with your installations, because with your paintings, and I have a soft spot for your work because I get to look at one of your beautiful paintings every night of the week.
00:26:56.559 --> 00:27:07.039
And one of the things that I'm in love with about your work is that they are less about looking at something and they really do feel immersive.
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:14.960
You feel like you're in the landscape, you're absorbing, you're looking through the light, the yeah, you're looking through it.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:26.960
And so when I think about you and installation, I'm like, ooh, what do we do with Anna's work now that we're not being like consumed by the painting?
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:28.799
Like what I'm really curious about.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:30.960
Well, it's the same thing, actually.
00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:32.799
It's it's it's looking through.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:47.680
And I I'll tell you a story about that years ago when I had my studio at Hill End and I was selected to have a solo show at uh Western Plains Cultural Centre, and I had a fantastic curator working with me called Kent Buchanan, amazing guy.
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:58.240
And every time I had this um sort of kind of thing where I because I find I find painting is the hardest thing, it's always the hardest thing.
00:27:58.559 --> 00:28:05.599
So um when I finished a group of painting, because I was at Helen, I'd go for a lot of walks and I'd find all sorts of things.
00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:13.279
And I my first show out of art school, I did some installations and the the uh sculpture department liked them.
00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:16.240
This is after I left art school, they they really liked them.
00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:19.920
So I kind of didn't pay much attention to them.
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:28.559
And when Kent Buchanan came to the studio to pick my work for the show, he said, I really like those installations, and I still thought they were play.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:39.119
They were like play in between a body of painting work, they were kind of like problem solving, they were and I had all these things I'd found, rusty bits, bones.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:46.880
Um, I had to defy devise a system of joining them together, so twine and all sorts of materials like that came in.
00:28:47.039 --> 00:28:50.880
So I didn't give them much sort of importance really.
00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:56.240
And then another friend of mine, another artist came and he said, You've got to show these.
00:28:56.319 --> 00:28:58.880
I said, Oh no, they're just bits I do in between.
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:07.759
And then Kent Buchanan, after I had a show there, he had a few other shows and he wanted some of those installations and some of my paintings.
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:10.160
And I said, They don't really go together.
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:11.599
He's no, no, no, they do.
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:31.680
And he saw it, and then I started to look, and I saw that some of the same things, that looking through that space, that's that kind of quietness, although they're more complex in some ways, because you see an installation, you see the complexity, whereas in a painting, a lot of the complexity is underneath.
00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:36.640
So the viewer doesn't get to see that, and that's why you get that sense of walking through.
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:42.720
So the installations do um they are good companions to the paintings.
00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:50.079
I didn't realize that for a long time, but these have made now uh you would see the relationship, I think.
00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:52.960
So that's that's an interesting thing.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:30:00.400
I was gonna say, are they similar to your beautiful paperworks that you had in your last solo show in the beautiful perspective?
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:03.519
Kind of then yes and no.
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:11.759
They're they're more like um, you know, your painting, you have them not quite like that, but there's an element of that.
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:12.240
Okay.
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.160
So they're flat, they sit flat, and you you they're very, very they look very plain.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.000
Oh my god, they were not.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:23.359
To actually and a lot of it's to do with the placement.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:41.200
So bit like the painting where they're moving to actually get particularly the new ones, even the one you've got on all of that series, to actually get that relationship between certain elements in the painting, so it does go in and out, is really hard.
00:30:41.519 --> 00:31:02.559
Maybe you should explain that actually, because I think when people actually view your work, one thing I will say is that you have to see Anna's work in the flesh because there is just so much depth in the textures and in the tiny little marks.
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:09.279
And I mean, every single time I look at your work at home, I pick something different out of it that I haven't seen before.
00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:19.359
It's very reassuring when somebody keeps looking because that's my when I buy a work that is my provisor, that that work takes me back all the time.
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:20.240
Oh, 100%.
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:21.279
Same same.
00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:23.680
That's what I want to do with my work.
00:31:23.839 --> 00:31:30.319
So I even the new still ones, um, they take so much to get them to that point.
00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:41.599
So that thing about looking through is a way of taking you away from a flat canvas where you're looking at something sitting on a canvas.
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:45.279
So you're actually looking beyond the canvas in a way.
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:48.799
So I'm trying to get you to go into that space.
00:31:48.960 --> 00:31:55.680
So I'm it's kind of all this trickery where as a painter you're trying to dissolve the edges.
00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:04.960
You want you want that that little thing you painted or that big thing to be a little world where you're losing the size, you're just entering it.
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:10.559
A bit like what you know, Roscoe did it, Agnes Martin did it, Mirandi did it.
00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:17.359
So that is a really difficult thing, and it's something I've strived for all the time.
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:28.240
And when you're a tonal painter, it's even harder because you're working with these close relationships and you're having to push and pull and push something back.
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:30.400
Is that sitting in the space I want?
00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:35.680
Yeah, you're walking through, like I had one in this very last show in November, which was two arches.
00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:42.240
And it it was actually about are you walking through that space, are you getting into that space?
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:51.200
So that it's always that, and it's always this kind of silence of of being in that space and and slowing you down.
00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:57.519
And that is it's all very well to say it in words, but then practically to do it is difficult.
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:18.319
So it's something that makes me paint because if I didn't have that, I'm looking at this huge one I'm working at the moment, which is almost two metres long, and at the moment it's a mess of marks, and I've got some vision of where I wanted to go, but I don't know until I start layering it where that's going to sit.
00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:20.319
Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you.
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:22.319
Do you kind of I never know?
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:23.039
I don't plan.
00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:25.599
You just start, you just start on the canvas.
00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:27.039
Okay, right, right.
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:43.119
And I start with, and what I quite often do, which sounds crazy, but I learned this from John Piat, who's sadly now deceased, and he was an extraordinary painter and a really good model in terms of how he viewed painting and how he thought about painting.
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:57.839
So he used to um have a whole lot of uh canvases and he'd wipe his brushes on one canvas so that if you had too much paint on one brush, you'd go to another empty canvas and wipe it on.
00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:02.559
So you start integrating this volume of marks, which I still do.
00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:10.719
And it's very interesting because what happens is gradually those marks coalesce into something.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:18.800
I do have an idea of what overall of what my work means, but I don't have that idea for each painting.
00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:24.079
I want them to coalesce as a body of work, but I also want them to hold their own space.
00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:31.599
So one of the things I struggle with is having to frame them because I really want them to float.
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:32.079
Yes.
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:44.079
And and if you look at a lot of the painters uh who work like that, like Aida Tomesco, she doesn't frame her work, and the the framing of work is you're boxing it straight away.
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:47.280
Yes, but your frames in the last show.
00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:57.599
This they were, you know, it was the first time I've ever seen someone use a frame like that, and man, yeah, did it work successfully.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:59.599
They were absolutely beautiful.
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:24.159
Yeah, it was quite good, and it was interesting because I knew their work, and I I was in London the year before, and I saw Nagnes Martin in the Totem Modern, and I just adore her work, and it was quite a big painting, and she had a very it was literally a silver strip stuck literally onto the edge of the painting.
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:27.519
It was similar to what I did, only even flatter.
00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:39.360
And I just saw it and I thought, yes, that's that's because I'd already started on my body of work, and I knew that I wanted them to float outside the frame.
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:53.920
So and going back to that show, the drawings in the in the big boxes, that's why I wear the frame like that, because it meant that you were looking at an object, you're looking at a box, but within that there was a kind of a floating sensation.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:54.400
Yeah.
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:11.440
So I wanted that, and that's something that for me is it's a really big struggle because you're working with these sometimes flat surfaces, and then you have to use texture and depth to actually you know how colour gives you depth and all those things.
00:36:11.519 --> 00:36:20.239
So at the moment, I'm as you saw in the last show, they were very quiet areas, and then you went up close and you saw the text in some of the others.
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:27.360
So that holds those very dark, quiet shapes, it gives them gives them weight in a way.
00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:32.079
So that's that's really what I strive for all the time.
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:43.360
Um, so I'm I'm now that I've finished this Lake MAC, I'm I'm actually I've just completed, so I've completed six paintings, two are going to Lake MAC, and I'm working on another three at the moment.
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:45.679
So I tend to work in a group.
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:49.360
And then one might take me over the other one.
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:55.039
But um I like working in a group because then I can't kill them too much.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:56.159
Oh yes.
00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:04.000
I feel like I have been having this murdering of painting discussion constantly lately, but it's okay.
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:08.239
I think I've moved out of the the the well don't know.
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:18.559
I mean, if you did one of those uh photographic uh, you know how they now can run a light over your paintings, they do all the old paintings and they've found other paintings.
00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:24.079
If you'd run one of those over some of my paintings, there's 25 layers in some of them.
00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:25.199
100%.
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:37.360
Yeah, and so that's what gives it the weight in a way, and and the the viewer doesn't see that, but photographing those works is near impossible because it flattens, the photo flattens everything.
00:37:37.519 --> 00:37:54.960
So you're not getting that the colour is painters like colouries, they've got colour to kind of get you, you know, that's kind of the the whereas in mine that's not the focal point, so it's it's a it's a s it's a fight to kind of you have to go in and look at them, really.
00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:57.039
Yes, a hundred percent.
00:37:57.119 --> 00:37:57.360
Yeah.
00:37:57.599 --> 00:38:06.960
And I think um we were talking like recently when Aida Tomescu's show was on at Fox Jensen, we both went and had a look.
00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:10.960
And I had this really incredible conversation with her.
00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:13.920
I felt like I'd been touched by the fairy godmother.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:15.440
Yeah, yeah, she's amazing.
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:22.480
About this battle with um allowing things to remain unfinished.
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:40.400
And I said to her, My biggest battle is like, you know, when you have deadlines and you're trying to meet things at a at a deadline, and so inevitably what happens is you start pushing shit uphill because the resistance is building on the fact that they need to get done.
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.639
Yeah, and so you're not creating any space for the work to just allow it to be.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:49.760
You're actually, yeah, you're actually dictating to the work person, you've got to get finished, you've got to get finished.
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:52.639
And that's right, and everything goes backwards.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:04.960
No, so what she said to me on on that um night, she she said, Oh, I never think about finishing my paintings.
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:05.360
No.
00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:08.320
And I thought, oh, that's exactly what I needed to hear it.
00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:09.679
Just so simple.
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:10.880
Yeah, so simple.
00:39:11.119 --> 00:39:23.599
She all yeah, she said to us at art school, I was lucky to have her, and she said, I like to look at a painting where there's a space to go in and there's a possibility of expansion.
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:26.559
So she's she's looking at paintings.
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:32.239
Sometimes a perfect finished painting is chokes you, it doesn't have room for you.
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:33.599
Where do you go in there?
00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:42.159
So she she talks about the possibility of the painting having a continuous life in a way, and that happened to me with the last show.
00:39:42.239 --> 00:39:55.039
The very last painting I was working was a really big one, and it went through so many changes, and I was getting to the point where I think, come on, come on, I've got to finish it in two weeks.
00:39:55.119 --> 00:39:55.599
Come on, come on.
00:39:55.760 --> 00:40:02.400
In the end, I thought this is ridiculous, you've never done this before to yourself.
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:08.800
I got so uptight, so I just let it go, and once I let it go, I just kept working.
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:31.599
Suddenly I could see where I was going wrong, and then the solution came really quickly, and that one was one of the probably the one of the paintings that took me somewhere else, and I had done a little one not unlike that for a Christmas show, which sort of was very bright, but the the shapes and that started to come out there.
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:45.360
But when you move to a very big canvas and you've got all those spaces, and you're only putting three space three three pieces of construction and volume into the canvas, that was hard.
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:54.400
So once I let go of that, you've got to finish it, resolution, resolution, it just suddenly talked, it talked back to me.
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:57.039
And it just, you know, it just talked back to me.
00:40:57.119 --> 00:41:17.840
And that was one thing she she, I mean, I she's an extraordinary woman, artist and knowledgeable, and so um, and I think a lot of artists will tell you that, not just Aida, that when you start to create that sense of, oh, it's I have to complete it, that's the end of it.
00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:36.800
I mean, Philip Augustine, another of my heroes, he um the classic story about him was he he was an insomniac, so he used to paint all night and he painted this fant what he thought was a fantastic painting, and walked in in the morning, he said, No, actually, no, it's not.
00:41:36.960 --> 00:41:42.400
And then and that was one story, but the really classic one, and you can see that in a video.
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:50.719
She actually said he he painted this painting, and he said, Yeah, it was an okay painting, but it was too much like a painting.
00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:51.360
Yes.
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:57.599
So he scraped it all up and he said, I corrected one end, and then I corrected the other, and then I didn't have a painting.
00:41:57.760 --> 00:41:59.119
But he said that was okay.
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:07.760
And then he said, five, six years later, I started to paint the things I corrected because I couldn't live with them at the time.
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:09.360
I wasn't ready for them.
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:09.760
Yeah.
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:13.039
So that's interesting learning.
00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:20.639
Uh, you know, I've actually photographed different stages of my painting, and then I look back and I think, maybe I should have left it there, you know.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:21.920
But but that's okay.
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:22.960
It's just a painting.
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:24.400
You're not saving the world.
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:34.079
Um you know, you you can actually it's it's what makes it what makes a better painting to make those mistakes.
00:42:34.320 --> 00:42:39.679
I I find my mistakes are the ones that take me forward always, always, always.
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:45.920
I just suddenly one of the classic ones, and I think Sophie said it in my opening last year.
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:59.199
I I was starting to scrape off some paint, and I had a McDonald's wooden spoon, a wooden fork, and I started to scrape, and I thought, oh, I really like that texture.
00:42:59.840 --> 00:43:04.559
So that was something that I I thought, no, I don't need to get rid of all that paint.
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:09.039
I can texture it in this way through a tunnel's fork.
00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:12.639
But it were it it's just those little things.
00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:14.880
You don't know, you don't know.
00:43:15.039 --> 00:43:28.000
I mean, you may I've got a whole lot of one of the canvases I tore up, I've got strips, I've cut a whole lot of strips of it, and they're like little mini landscapes when I look at the strips, and I I it's quite interesting.
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:29.119
I just cut them up.
00:43:29.199 --> 00:43:30.159
I was going to throw them on.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:32.960
I thought, no, they look interesting, I'll keep them, you know.
00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:33.840
And they're there.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:36.000
I you know, they're just in the studio.
00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:40.800
So it's it's amazing what you find that you didn't know.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:43.199
I think all artists have got their eyes open.
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:45.519
They they take I I take things in.
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:47.599
And Peter says, What are you looking at that for?
00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:50.000
Oh, look at that mark on the floor.
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:58.159
Isn't it's how our our visual intelligence portrays itself on what we're finding.
00:43:58.559 --> 00:44:06.559
And I think I haven't got the enormous technical perfection skills that some painters have.
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:09.440
And I I see what they can paint.
00:44:09.519 --> 00:44:10.559
I think that's amazing.
00:44:10.639 --> 00:44:12.159
I could never do that.
00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:17.920
But then I know also painters who have got enormous technical skill and it gets in the way.
00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:18.320
Yes.
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:21.760
Because it takes them a while to jump out of that.
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:25.199
And I can draw well if I want and all the rest.
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:27.360
But I feel like that's there.
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:28.559
That's the armature.
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:32.159
We've all had to draw, we've all had to learn how to mix paint.
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:34.960
But then it's what you do with that, you know.
00:44:35.119 --> 00:44:44.079
So I think having a lot of technical skill, unless you have the vision to take that further, can be problematic.
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:53.039
Yes, and I think curiosity, I think the thing is it's all at the end of the day, it's all about learning how to be curious again.
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:54.320
Absolutely.
00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:54.960
All the time.
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:09.920
Well, the world's so tight now.
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:16.880
And that's what going back to residency, that's what's good about them, because you're not going there to finish anything.
00:45:16.960 --> 00:45:20.239
You're going there with an element of everything's new.
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:31.119
So everything is going to awaken you something that maybe you didn't see before, even though you might look for a particular shape that you're familiar with, it's going to be different in how it's in that environment.
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:44.639
So that's what um, you know, I actually now, because I've done a couple of residencies last year and this year, I don't really want to do any more because I find that my my cup runneth over.
00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:52.880
I if I do too many, it starts getting a bit it it it doesn't, it decenters me anyway because I've got too much information.
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:56.239
But what I've done will feed me.
00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:58.079
Yeah, it'll feed me.
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:03.519
So uh it was great to go back to Lake Macquarie, really, really good.
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.000
And that'll feed me for a long time.
00:46:06.159 --> 00:46:09.920
I I've got that that sort of memory bank, if you like.
00:46:10.079 --> 00:46:13.679
There's a little sort of part of my brain that's got all those images.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:30.239
And if you've got good photographic memory, you can kind of remember certain things, uh, and also the sketches, but I don't necessarily I'll have them in my studio here and everywhere, but I don't necessarily um look at them when I'm painting.
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:38.000
I might go back and think, oh, I like that intersection there, but I'm not I'm not using all that information to paint the painting.
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:40.000
They start and they're on their own.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:42.000
They're like a different language in a way.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:55.519
Yeah, so I think that's one thing that people ask a lot is that when it comes to thinking in a more abstract way, which this is this is what you're so good at.
00:46:55.920 --> 00:47:02.719
I often get people that ask, well, when you look at a landscape, how do you actually simplify it?
00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:10.800
Like, how do you go from all of this information down to this flattened yeah?
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.880
And so I'm curious to know how you would explain that to someone.
00:47:15.039 --> 00:47:18.079
I know how I explain it to people, but how do you explain that?
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:26.639
Well, the first thing if I were teaching how to the very first pragmatic technical thing is make yourself a viewfinder.
00:47:26.880 --> 00:47:28.320
Oh, is that good?
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:38.639
By a viewfinder, I mean a little square piece of cardboard and you cut a shape out of that that's either square or rectangular, so you've got other panoramic.
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:48.880
So if people are completely bamboozled, which a lot of new painters or new people learning to paint are they look out then thinking, oh my god, look at all of that.
00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:55.760
Get your viewfinder and put that on your landscape and find a little bit, and that's your painting.
00:47:55.920 --> 00:47:57.119
That's number one.
00:47:57.360 --> 00:48:04.880
If you can't, if you yourself can't divide up when you're looking, I can do it now, but a lot of people find that difficult.
00:48:05.199 --> 00:48:17.199
The second thing is that I the way I look at landscape is not just to record it, the landscape has to do something for me, it's got to slow me down.
00:48:17.519 --> 00:48:21.679
So if I'm going into a landscape, I'm not.
00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:28.320
I think in my statement for the last show, I said I'm not doing a mimetic version of the landscape.
00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:35.039
I'm actually doing a version of the landscape and how I respond in that one moment.
00:48:35.119 --> 00:48:45.039
And it's not necessarily a reproduction, it's how what that landscape gives me in that moment, silence, all of those things.
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:51.519
So it's a combination of looking, being, sitting, and I always look for that in a landscape.
00:48:51.679 --> 00:48:56.320
So if I go to a landscape, it has to be something that slows me right down.
00:48:56.480 --> 00:49:05.039
For example, if I go to um Brooklyn, where I go with the drawing group, it's always I look at the mangrove roots.
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:12.239
And that those shapes are abstract, so that immediately takes me to an abstract condition.
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:26.320
Um, you know, it it's all and it's always looking through, it's always that silence of the Australian bush is quite weird, it's quite sort of um it it's straggly, it's untidy.
00:49:26.639 --> 00:49:28.400
You're looking through layers and that.
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:32.559
So I'm looking at layering all the time, which is what you said when you look at mine.
00:49:32.639 --> 00:49:37.840
So there's a sense of space, and for me, the space is silence and slowing down.
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:40.320
So that's the only way I can explain it.
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:42.719
No, that's a great way to explain it.
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:54.239
And the other thing I think sometimes when I'm taking people out plain air on like sketchbook adventures or whatnot, one of the things that I always say is less is more.
00:49:54.320 --> 00:49:56.719
Don't take heaps and heaps of supplies.
00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:00.719
Keep with like a limited amount of notebook.
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:01.039
Yeah.
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:04.480
Sometimes a small notebook and a and a pen is all you need.
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:04.880
Yeah.
00:50:05.039 --> 00:50:06.639
Because you're doing lines and things.
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:20.639
I mean, one of the cases of that when I went to Lake Mike this time, we went to a few different spots, and I was looking very closely at all the she oaks and their movement, and I found this one spot where they were actually growing quite different differently.
00:50:20.719 --> 00:50:27.119
And when I looked at them, I thought, I took these incredible photos, and I thought this is like a Japanese screen.
00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:35.760
They were just so oriental, and that's when you're laying another relationship, another reaction to what's out there.
00:50:35.840 --> 00:50:37.280
It's your reaction.
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:42.559
It's not necessarily what the landscape is, but it's how you see that in that moment.
00:50:43.119 --> 00:50:48.719
So that I did one very, very detailed drawing and one that's just the marks.
00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:52.960
And when I looked at it, it's just the she-oke pin needle swaying.
00:50:53.440 --> 00:51:02.480
And that's that is if you're an abstract painter, that's what you're looking for, that momentary uh engagement that with that space.
00:51:02.559 --> 00:51:06.880
That's not necessarily depicting the space, but how I feel, how I react.
00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:13.760
So I always want to slow down, I always want to be quiet and and just take one little portion of it.
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:17.119
You know, is it and sound, sound's another thing.
00:51:17.199 --> 00:51:22.159
You know, if you're in a landscape and you hear the water moving, how do you paint the water moving?
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:27.519
That's abstract and it's that's a sound thing, and it's a silence too.
00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:29.440
How you know, how do you?
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:37.280
I mean, some of the paint the two paintings I've done for Lake MAC are essentially about the lake and the sky meeting.
00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:38.320
How beautiful.
00:51:38.880 --> 00:51:41.679
So they're shapes, but they're quite wild.
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:44.880
They're a little bit wilder than my last show.
00:51:45.039 --> 00:51:46.480
They're very quiet.
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:50.079
Um sorry, they're not as quiet.
00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:52.000
So there's things like that.
00:51:52.079 --> 00:52:08.079
So when I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, oh, that's a lake, that's a sky, but isn't it interesting that they're meeting or that they're becoming one or that they're moving together, or how do I do I see them optically as one body?
00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:19.440
All of those things come into how I paint the landscape, or how I because essentially, even though my work is very minimal now, it's still influenced by something I saw.
00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:28.559
Everybody paints, you can't not, you know, you might be walking down the street and see a square on the footpath, and you think, oh, that's cool.
00:52:28.719 --> 00:52:30.559
Uh well, why did you notice it?
00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:31.840
Yeah, that's right.
00:52:32.079 --> 00:52:32.559
That's right.
00:52:32.719 --> 00:52:34.639
That's that curiosity piece, isn't it?
00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:35.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:35.679 --> 00:52:39.599
It's all of you know, it's what you were saying about your curiosity podcast.
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:40.719
It's about that.
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:53.760
It's how uh as different artists and for some people, you know, people who are figurative or whatever, the curiosity might be in how to depict uh hand in different ways, you know, all sorts of things.
00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:55.760
It's just what you find.
00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:00.880
And for me, abstraction is just such a it's another world, really.
00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:05.920
I think in a book that I was in, I wrote it's learning another language.
00:53:06.239 --> 00:53:07.280
Yes, which it is.
00:53:07.440 --> 00:53:09.599
It's it a hundred percent is.
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:11.440
Yeah, and it's it's hard.
00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:14.320
You've got to have all the other stuff before you get to that.
00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:15.440
Yeah.
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:23.119
Well, I think I think in fish finishing up today, here are the takeaways that I've pulled out of this conversation.
00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:27.840
One, I am gonna bring my viewfinder because it stays in the back of my sketchbook the whole time.
00:53:29.199 --> 00:53:31.599
Yeah, mine, you know, and mine actually changes.
00:53:31.760 --> 00:53:33.440
I can pull it like in or out.
00:53:33.599 --> 00:53:36.639
It's like a plastic one that has like one of those slidey things.
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:38.239
So it's quite handy.
00:53:38.480 --> 00:53:39.360
So I've got that.
00:53:39.519 --> 00:53:45.280
So I'm gonna take my viewfinder, I'm gonna take my gouaches, and I'm gonna take basic drawing materials.
00:53:45.519 --> 00:53:49.440
I'm not even gonna allow myself to take acrylic because that's too much.
00:53:49.760 --> 00:53:51.199
No, acrylic's too hard.
00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:54.880
I find it too hard because once it's dry, it's dry.
00:53:55.119 --> 00:53:55.360
Yeah.
00:53:55.599 --> 00:53:58.239
So gouache is so malleable, you know.
00:53:58.559 --> 00:53:59.760
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:02.239
At least with the gouache, I can like keep it.
00:54:02.320 --> 00:54:07.280
Oh, you can just keep working, you can run the tap over it, you can do whatever you like with it.
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:10.239
I a lot of people are frightened of gouache, but I love it.
00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:12.719
I've been using it for years, it's just fantastic.
00:54:13.039 --> 00:54:15.360
Well, it's handy because it just keeps reactivating.
00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:21.199
You can take it, take it out, and you can keep the same paint on the palate and you're good to go.
00:54:21.519 --> 00:54:22.800
Yeah, absolutely.
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:26.320
And whereas watercolour is a lot more tricky.
00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:29.440
Um I I think gouache is very forgiving.
00:54:29.519 --> 00:54:33.119
And just, you know, uh a few pens, a few pencils.
00:54:33.199 --> 00:54:50.480
Uh I I had some oil pastel and pastel, which I took, and I took a black pen, which I used a lot, uh, a nice gel pen, and I did and also for the drawings at Lake Mac, I used a lot, I did a lot of black and white drawing because I wanted this I wanted to see how the structures worked.
00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:57.519
You know, I was talking about relationships and structures, so the relationship between tree trunks and the space behind.
00:54:57.679 --> 00:55:01.760
So sometimes if you put too much down, you don't see that, you're covering it.
00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:04.559
So by it's like negative and positive space.
00:55:04.719 --> 00:55:08.880
So the the uh in a way that feeds into installations too.
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:11.280
So there's a lot of positive and negative space.
00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:23.920
So yeah, I think I would I'll focus on that, and then I think the the other thing that I've taken out of this conversation is to document, not produce.
00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:28.320
So I'm just gonna use it as an opportunity to do all my work.
00:55:28.719 --> 00:55:34.400
Don't don't think about the word production in itself is a is a difficult word for me.
00:55:34.719 --> 00:55:39.360
You're not producing, you're actually engaging, you're investigating.
00:55:39.440 --> 00:55:40.239
That's a better word.
00:55:40.400 --> 00:55:40.639
Yeah.
00:55:41.519 --> 00:55:41.920
Love it.
00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:43.679
Yeah, yeah, that's sort of that.
00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:47.360
That's I never go on any expectations when I go on these plays.
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:52.800
And quite often I find the first time a bit tight, the first few drawings, and then I just think, oh, what the hell?
00:55:52.880 --> 00:55:57.199
And I let go, and I start to really look and pick what I want.
00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:59.679
And that's that's when you're kind of doing stuff.
00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:12.320
And when I just don't worry about I don't like the idea of show and tell comparing to other artists, I like to I mean, I'm it's f I'm fine with it, but I always find that a little bit less intimidating.
00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:16.800
I think it's such a personal thing when you're working like that.
00:56:17.199 --> 00:56:25.920
Um, that immediately the minute somebody's oh, let's do show and tell, it's it's okay, but I find it a bit com like a comparison.
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:27.840
So that's my personal reaction.
00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:35.679
I get very oh, you know, um, because I don't necessarily do uh a lot of detailed drawings.
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:42.480
So I think, oh gosh, you know, but anyway, look, I think everybody you might find people may not draw at all.
00:56:42.559 --> 00:56:45.039
They might just do installation, gather things.
00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:50.000
It's it's it doesn't matter what you do, but you are there, and that's the important thing.
00:56:50.320 --> 00:57:06.880
Yeah, just be present to that landscape and use the time to fill my well, and it will be the first time since like having my daughter that I've been able to like just be somewhere separate from the studio, which I'm really excited.
00:57:07.280 --> 00:57:14.079
Number one thing, because we all work in our little caves, and that I tend I tend to I can be a bit difficult.
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:16.880
I can get into my cave and not want to see anything or anybody.
00:57:17.039 --> 00:57:31.920
So to actually put yourself in a situation where you are you are sharing with other artists, there's some great conversations that come out, and that's a sharing of of knowledge of you know, just conversation, which is really, really important.
00:57:32.079 --> 00:57:33.360
It's really, really good.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:39.119
So that's that in itself is one of the valuable things of a of uh residence.
00:57:39.679 --> 00:57:42.000
Even that alone is valuable, you know.
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:53.360
And I like I know so obviously I know Susie Jureau and um uh and beautiful Marissa Bell, but the others I haven't met in person, so it's gonna be really good.
00:57:53.840 --> 00:58:00.960
Yeah, I didn't know I had met Sophie, um I didn't know Kate Dorrow at all.
00:58:01.199 --> 00:58:07.920
Um I didn't know Leah, I'd met Leah once, but I didn't really know her, and we became really good pals.
00:58:08.079 --> 00:58:12.880
It was a really nice thing to to have that experience without it.
00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:15.760
And even if you don't see them much again, it doesn't matter.
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:20.719
You've had those moments together and that conversation, that's important, you know.
00:58:20.960 --> 00:58:22.239
Yeah, it's gonna be really valuable.
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:24.320
That'll be fabulous, you'll love it.
00:58:24.559 --> 00:58:26.719
Yes, it's gonna be a bit chilly, I think.
00:58:26.800 --> 00:58:29.440
So I'm gonna have to pack some winter woolies.
00:58:29.840 --> 00:58:33.280
Yes, put a take a hat because your extremities get cold.
00:58:33.519 --> 00:58:36.079
If you've got half mittens, yeah.
00:58:36.400 --> 00:58:42.400
Yeah, that's cut off ones that I usually use when I'm out playing them, so I have to pull those out again.
00:58:42.639 --> 00:58:43.679
Yeah, yeah, they're good.
00:58:43.760 --> 00:58:45.199
Yeah, I've got a pair like that.
00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:47.199
Thank you for taking the time.
00:58:49.760 --> 00:58:51.360
Yeah, so that's not far off.
00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:59.199
It's a no, it's literally like I think I've got like this week and next week, and then I'll be there.
00:58:59.440 --> 00:59:01.280
Yeah, so you'll love it.
00:59:01.519 --> 00:59:10.000
It'll be it'll be really, really wonderful, and um, you're it it's always a growing experience no matter what you get.
00:59:10.079 --> 00:59:16.800
I mean, I had a fairly difficult time up there because I had a bad knee and my husband wasn't well, but I still got a lot out of it.
00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:18.559
You're still you're there, you know.
00:59:19.039 --> 00:59:20.960
It's amazing, it's really, really good.
00:59:21.199 --> 00:59:23.679
Yeah, you have a good day.
00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:25.199
Yeah, no worries.
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:26.960
I'm gonna get back to painting.
00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:28.079
Yeah, me too.
00:59:28.159 --> 00:59:32.800
About I'm looking at these and thinking they're not painting themselves, so I'd better do something.
00:59:33.119 --> 00:59:33.599
Yeah.
00:59:34.480 --> 00:59:35.119
Same here.
00:59:35.360 --> 00:59:35.920
Same here.
00:59:36.159 --> 00:59:36.400
Okay.
00:59:36.800 --> 00:59:38.079
I'll tell you soon.
00:59:38.320 --> 00:59:38.559
See you.
00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:38.960
Okay.
00:59:39.760 --> 00:59:40.320
Bye.
