A selection of paintings in the Pilbara Landscape category
Sunday July 21 we again drove the 200km to Cossack. Two days earlier we arrived back from four nights in Perth. The gloss of the previous journey to Cossack had definitely worn off. Even the landscape looked washed out and lacklustre. On arrival at Cossack we were greeted by a stream of cars and more people than I have ever seen at an art exhibition. It appears family day at the Cossack Art Awards is an event not to be missed.
So after spending two hours in a car and meeting Dorothy the Dinosaur we were finally ready to tackle the three hundred paintings hung in the restored Post and Telegraph Office and Bond Store. (The Bond Store is the blue stone building we my team of well trained painting handlers are standing in front of in the previous blog.) To say the whole experience was overwhelming is an apt description. After traversing the eight rooms of the Post and Telegraph Office we made our way to the Bond Store. It is a large building that was lined with paintings hung three high. We had to have lunch and go back to take it all in. And there, among the hundreds of paintings, was Rusty hanging the most popular category.
I have to admit to being a little disappointed. I don't often have the opportunity to view my work in a group situation, but every time I do it always makes me feel awkward. After driving through the washed out landscape, Rusty appeared far too bright. After considering some of the other paintings in the exhibition it occurred to me that cyclones are not luminous green, but shades of grey. After seeing all those other paintings I began thinking more deeply about my own work. I am beginning to feel that after spending the last six and a half years painting in a corner, that I had finally painted myself in to a corner.
Seeing Rusty hanging on the wall ad mist all those other paintings set my mind reeling. I am thinking of horizon lines and vast landscapes once again. I am eager to once again take up the challenge of painting outdoors with the heat, the bugs, the constantly changing light, mixing colours to their likeness, and accurately capturing the essence of the land rather then merely reproducing it from photograph. I have started sketching the landscape again. I have to admit I find it deeply satisfying, being out in the land has a calming effect on me. I usually stop on the way from school drop off in the morning on the days I spend painting. Rather than racing home and anxiously slapping (precisely applying) paint on the canvas I find I breathe before I begin my painting day and approach the canvas having already achieved something for the day.
Although the travelling to and from Cossack is a process in itself, it was definitely worth the trip for all the insight and inspiration it provided for my corner bound mind. Stay tuned for the Hedland Art Awards due in only eleven short days.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the painting that won the $8000 Pilbara Landscape Painting category was Celia Sandy for her work titled Hamersley Ranges, pictured top right in the photograph.
