Upcoming exhibition: Vanessa Goes Home to Paint

Welcome to my late November news, and thank you for reading.

Two scarves, a beanie and five layers of woollens, it was freezing … and the light was exquisitely beautiful! The winter of 2022, unwell but fulfilled, I’d recently completed this awkward, gentle painting – ‘Vanessa Goes Home to Paint.’  

My friend Miriam Louisa was with me that day, bones aching in the chill, and so we didn’t stay long at the Gilmore Valley shed-studio. She kindly took this photo, and later wrote about my work. Thank you Miriam Louisa, one of those rare people who sees into an artwork, a poem, a story and renders its’ essence into words that add, rather than detract from the meaning of the work.

The title of this painting and my upcoming exhibition was inspired by Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961) British modernist painter, designer and core member of the Bloomsbury group. Despite great loss and challenges, her creative freedom and dedication to her practice was sustained and innovative. She did not ask for permission from anyone, simply painted as she must.

Staying aligned with what one knows to be true, even if odd by mainstream standards, is not easy in the maze of conditioning that has closed doors in our own minds. Vanessa’s belief in herself was such that she followed her desires through in painting, design and all aspects of her life. I have borrowed that belief from her, and some motifs, as you’ll see.

The exhibition of my paintings with ceramics – Vanessa Goes Home to Paint – opens next Saturday afternoon at Litsa Veldekis Gallery, 26 Oxford St, Woollahra (just around the corner from Queen St). If you’re driving, your navigator may take you to 26 Oxford St, Paddington. Don’t listen! Keep driving up the hill and the gallery is near the corner of Queen St, where there’s often a parking spot. Look out for the painting below in the window!

Here’s the link to see the catalogue and RSVP to come along. You’re welcome to come along and share some celebratory bubbles! Not so easy, I know. I will take some footage and post soon. Follow me on Instagram to see the latest.

 

Early on, I would look at an exhibition and not wonder about the blood, sweat and tears associated with its’ making. It’s all too easy to dismiss thoughts about how the artist arrived at what you see on the walls. However, the unseen part of the work is of significance too.

What happened for these things to get made?*

What do they even mean?

Who am I now after all this?!

What were the crucial twists and turns?

The preparations for this show have offered an invitation to reflect. Soon the work may not be with me. I’ll miss being able to look and learn from the paintings and the ceramics. The millions of choices inextricably connect with who I’ve become. I like having them around.

Pondering that first question*, I realised and feel much gratitude for several  happenings which influenced the formation of this body of paintings and ceramics. Here they are:

One. While artist in residence at Murray’s Cottage, Hill End, ten years ago, I was intrigued by how light played around inside the old miner’s cottage. There was an area beside the ancient stove where Margaret Ollie had laid Victorian tiles she’d found at the tip. The light would bounce off the disharmonious array, and reflect coloured shards onto the near wall. I was intrigued for not having seen such an ugly colour combination create such beautiful shards of light! Series Hearth, begun in 2017, was inspired by the ancient hearth and all it stood for. Warmth. Gathering. Belonging. And alchemy.

Two. Being artist in residence with East Asian calligraphy Master Artist, writer and peace activist Kaz Tanahashi in Berkeley was a profound and seemingly ordinary experience at the time. It wasn’t. I understand the gifts of quiet; the attention of a true  teacher; the guidance; the inspiration and modelling of being present. My hands stopped shaking. Calligraphic marks happened. There are some in these paintings.

Three.  Courtesy of Deborah Barlow, pentathlete of the arts – artist, insightful commentator/writer, philanthropist, artists’ friend and mentor – I saw the Boston MFA’s extraordinary exhibition Seeking Stillness. So much gravity and light in one show – Rothko, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell and the South Korean Dansaekhwa painters… Keep going. Stay true.

Four. Many of my paintings have an area of light centrally.

That central space became ‘a thing’ when I lived in a rental in Melbourne, and could not hang paintings on the walls. The space problem inspired a series of paintings where you could place flowers in front – Space for Flowers.

I liked that central seemingly empty space, reminiscent of Fra Angelico’s space of light between the Archangel and Mary in his Cell 3 Museo San Marco fresco (Florence). So intriguing is this space that renowned historian Georges Didi-Huberman enquired deeply into its’ meaning without ever mentioning any colour besides white.

There is, in fact, no pure white in that central part of Fra Angelico’s painting. Rather, fine brushstrokes in the most tender tints of pink, yellow, violet traverse the space between Archangel and Mary.

The light spaces of the paintings are where subtleties reward sustained viewing… and they serve as breathing spaces; spaces to rest between exploring the complex, and sometimes awkward colour relations.

Five. Spiritual care training at Royal Melbourne Hospital and a story told by John Berger pointed to a profound human need for making sacred spaces. I learned ceramics to help define such spaces. I had to make my own because the perfection of shop-bought ceramics did not give the feeling I wanted.

Six. Giorgio Morandi.

I saw an unforgettable show of Morandi’s at the Metropolitan Museum, New York in 2008. I’ve experimented with hundreds of different installations of paintings with ceramics, and the compositions I enjoy most are inspired by his paintings – where the objects are gathered and seem to converse.

Seven. Vanessa Bell.

In 2018, I began to read Vanessa Bell’s exhibition catalogue from The Dulwich Picture Gallery. The Stephen sisters – Virginia Bell and Vanessa Woolf – grew up as free thinkers. Brilliantly creative, their explorations were informed by their Post Impressionist colleagues in Europe.

Looking over my paintings, I can see where the content calls for harmony – for example ‘A Rose for Vanessa.’ (above) …and some where there’s the challenge of holding some kind of conflict or unusual beauty as in ‘#10 Heart of a Woman.’ Bell’s portrait of Mrs St John Hutchinson informed #10. The sitter was Vanessa’s husband Clive Bell’s lover, who knew Vanessa did not like her and sat for her portrait anyway.

While making The Vanessa Series from 2022-4, I moved studios three times.

Grateful for the kindness experienced from the Longobardi’s for the shed-studio, and Robyn Sweeney for my time at B: Atelier, the third move was into my dining room, spare bedroom and garage, so home-studio is more like a studio home!

Making this body of work seemed to draw me forward. There was momentum to it, rather than a plan. I had no idea how many paintings would be made and did not know where the next idea was coming from. When a lull came, I’d make vases, dip into Vanessa Bell’s biography (by Frances Spalding) or the Dulwich catalogue and fresh inspiration readily came.

In April last year, I visited Charleston, the former home of Vanessa Bell, to walk in her footsteps. I felt at home there, perhaps because my grandmother Kath’s homestead was similarly studded with creative projects and eclectic gatherings of things and flowers. The homely spaces of Charleston resonated.

Vanessa began to speak with abstract visual language in 1914. She decided not to continue with her colour-rich geometric explorations, however, as she believed it not possible to convey the sensuousness of life through abstract methods. Perhaps it was another 50 years before a woman would openly broach the subject again, and that was Agnes Martin.

Nonetheless, after venturing into non-objective painting, Vanessa’s paintings were not the same when she returned to figuration. There was a freshness and compositional structure unlike what she’d created previously. Her work reflected that she had changed irrevocably.

My vision for The Vanessa Series was to create a series of homely spaces with a gentle, contemplative and even intriguing ambience, however, we needed a farmhouse like Charleston to do that. Our solution was to create a special event whereby people could experience how they might compose paintings and ceramics from the show.

I’ll be guiding a session with Director Litsa Veldekis at 2pm on the 7th December. You’re welcome to come along to experience this rare opportunity with the guidance of professionals’ secrets and flowers to take home.

Yes to our art and soulful living!

Suzanne

Suzanne’s Upcoming Exhibition 

Vanessa Goes Home to Paint

Where: Litsa Veldekis Gallery, 26 Oxford St, Woollahra (Sydney)

When: Dec 7 – Jan 17

Opening: 3pm Saturday Dec 7 with complimentary event at 2pm

RSVP here.