| Jane Evans - painter
Colin McCahon described his painting ‘The Promised Land’ as “a dream painting of my life in Nelson - the places I love, me, my hut, and the water and light and below Farewell Spit, the end and beginning of it all.”
Today the same hills, the same light, the same climate and even the same lifestyle continue to inspire the artists of this region. Whether the art that is made is realistic, subjective, poetic or conceptual, the authenticity of experience in the connection with this land, this place, is what makes the stamp of a very potent personal imprint.
Geoffrey Smart, the expatriate Australian painter of contemporary urban landscape summed it up for me when he said “Art is nature, viewed through a temperament!”
Take the references and influences of those who have forged the tracks before you, but ultimately it is your own song you must sing.
Sally Burton - painter
Rose Madder, Hansa Yellow, Hookers Green, Alizirin Crimson, Indigo, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue. Before the lids are off the tubes the names of colours are enough to evoke the history of painting and to imagine new images that might be.
My seduction into the world of paint began early. Agee jars of poster paint and newsprint. A formative memory of one colour touching another and a new one emerging. New combinations of colour still spark ideas and possibilities and drive the creative process. The paint-box is always the pull to be in the studio. In the words of the seventh Dalai Lama,
“An image reflected in a mirror, a rainbow in the sky, and a painted scene make their impressions upon the mind, but in essence are other than what they seem. Look deeply at the world and see an illusion, a magician's dream.”
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