Time and place are obvious triggers to both memory and experience – rendering light though colour at a specific moment in time to capture a moment of beauty is not a new idea but such moments are rapidly superseded. Such is the nature of light.
As someone said to me last year, ‘if I can’t hang my car keys on it, why would I buy it?’
Part of any gallery ritual is the explanation provided. The necessity to explain in objective terms is all-pervasive and often becomes the be-all and end-all of looking at a work of art.
Is there a future for the painted portrait? The annual rush to present a work for selection to the NSW Archibald committee never seems to diminish and nor does the disappointment in being passed over yet again. The archies aren’t the only portrait prize either. But just who gets their portrait painted anyway these days when the camera phone can capture every waking moment in perpetuity?
Not that long ago I could define Abstract art as work without a formal, recognisable subject and essentially, centripetal.
A painting such as this is just such a moment. The figure is caught in motion, in transition, while the other areas are motionless but enlivened with texture. Words appear as seeming dialogue – the visualisation of a soundtrack. In film recording, the sound and picture are treated separately and only brought together in the editing. Again, this is artificial. We experience sound and picture simultaneously however, while the picture can be isolated to a static image or still, words are traditionally spoken at three words per second meaning that the words in the picture cannot be literally experienced at the same time as the figurative and textural elements in the painting. This contradiction creates not so much confusion as layers of improbability.