THE 2012 JOHN LESLIE ART PRIZE - · PDF filethe 2012 John Leslie Art Prize, ... nature becomes...

THE 2012 JOHN LESLIE ART PRIZE


2 / GIPPSLAND ART GALLERY

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD

Anton VardyDirector, Gippsland Art Gallery

The Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, is proud to presentthe 2012 John Leslie Art Prize, the seventh biennial prize for landscape painting. This year has seen a significant increase in overall prize money—now $20,000—which for the first time has been offeredas a first, second, and third prize, together with an individual prize for ‘best Gippsland work’. With this increase we have seen a swell in the number ofentries received, and as one would expect, a large increase in entries from the Gippsland region. Overall the Gallery received a record 273 entries from allparts of Australia, confirming the Prize’s reputationas an important national award.

The quality and consistency of entries impressed the selection panel, comprising myself, Gallery Advisory Board members Brian Castles and Clive Murray-White, and Gallery Curator Simon Gregg. Only with great patience and determination were the panel able to shortlist a group of thirty-five finalists. We could have easily filled a gallery twice the size.

The finalists in 2012 represent a remarkable array of talent. Between them they cover almost every approach to landscape painting. Their works will inspire, excite and challenge all who visit the exhibition, which if nothing else provides a vivid and telling account of the state of art in Australia.

The seventh winner will take their place alongside previous luminaries David Keeling (2000), Vera Möller (2002), Mark McCarthy (2004), Brigid Cole-Adams (2006), Andrew Mezei (2008) and Jason Cordero (2010). This year’s judging panel, comprising journalist Gabriella Coslovich, artist Sam Leach, and arts administrator Merle Hathaway, will have their work cut out for them.

This significant prize is only possible due to the enduring and generous support of Mr John Leslie O.B.E., Patron of the Gippsland Art Gallery. John’s original vision for the Prize was to foster and encourage high quality painting, specifically in the Gippsland region, and the 2012 Prize is surely testament to his success.

THE 2012 JOHN LESLIE ART PRIZE / 3

THE LURE OF THE LANDNotes on the 2012 John Leslie Art Prize

Simon GreggCurator, Gippsland Art Gallery

In 2012 the John Leslie Art Prize takes the national stage. As the prestige of the Prize increases, so too does the spread of entries, which this year have come from all corners of Australia. At the same time, we have seen a marked increase in entries from local Gippsland artists.

The result is an exhibition that represents a very concise summary on the state of landscape painting in Australia, encompassing its many variations and varieties. Painting—and in particular landscape painting—remains at once a ubiquitous presence in the art world spanning all ranges of ability, and something of a black sheep. Like the problem child that won’t go away, it is often taboo in certain artist cliques. But as new art forms rise in prominence, landscape painters continue to reinvent the code, absorbing the lessons learned from other media and becoming ever more prevalent. Landscape painting continues to move and inspire us because we can all relate to it. The land has the power to enrapture and enthral us, just as it embodies our greatest fears and insecurities. It is infinite in form, it serves as the ultimate metaphor, while at the same time, it remains that most humble and elegant tests of artistic ability.

Each of the thirty-five finalists are entirely unique in their approach. None are more-so than KATE SHAW,

whose pseudo-psychedelic swirls of radiant paintwork encapsulate the organic, random beauty of the natural world. In her Forest Caves, Shaw proves the enduring relevance of landscape painting, and its ability to adapt to new forms of art production. Similarly ALICE WORMALD attests to the potency and adaptability of landscape as a subject and painting as a medium in her work Giddy Heights. Like Shaw, Wormald invents her subjects through montage and manipulation of scale, to create strange and slightly terrifying new forms. VIV MILLER works in a similar way; her And Again presents light and form in a glittering cascade of colours, few of which are true to reality.

Indeed, reality is often the first causality of contemporary landscape painting. Refer to COLIN

PALETHORPE’s Homage to L’incertitude du Poete as a case in point. This splendid Beckmann-meets-De Chirico affair will have heads being scratched as it belligerently flouts the laws of colour, scale and perspective, preserving only the poetic sensibility of the artist. ANNIE BURN’s Untitled is an exercise in weird. From its array of floating fauna (dog, dragon and pony) to various potted cacti, Burns has more fun breaking the rules than should really be feasible. A similar mischievousness inhabits The Filter Station, Autumn by MARK RODDA. This fantastical array of


biological specimens becomes a showcase for the artist’s facility with paint. As a scene from the future or, possibly, another planet, it lets the imagination run riot.

There is also something strange going on in WILLIAM

YOUNG’s Cuddley Hills to Jeetho. The rolling hills of Gippsland are more like slabs of wilting clay, torched brilliant yellow by the blazing blue sky. We might more readily accept the houses as belonging to Smurfs than humans. Similarly Painting 92 by ALAN JONES has only a casual interest in the natural order of things. Heavy monochromatic splodges of paint are infused with washes of gentle colour; this painting takes the most indirect route toward balance and compositional harmony (but achieves it in the end).

There are some fine examples of ‘painter’s painting’ in 2012, by which I mean that kind of painting which is often only admired by other painters (but should be admired by all). Notable here is DAVID MOORE’s Nungerna Storm, in which a fearsome event of nature becomes of the subject of a violent attack of gouache on paper. Moore allows the viscous qualities of the paint to shine, by dragging ragged brushstrokes through caustic swabs of pigment. Storm Light by CHRIS DELPRATT suggests the

sanguine aftermath, where the water soaked hills feel cleansed and spirited. The paintwork here is light and airy, and we can almost smell the earthy fragrances filling the atmosphere. Picnic Creek by JURIS CERNS has—let’s not deny it—a Philip Guston quality whereby the painter’s love of paint is arguably the work’s most appealing feature. There is so much joy in the handling of paint that we might wonder how the artist found the will to stop. I would argue much the same for MIA SCHOEN’s Jacana Through to Essendon; where another artist might make the sleepy township (and accompanying roadworks) the central motif, Schoen is more interested in employing the clouds and grassy foreground in the service of painterly abandonment. Having faithfully documented this fringe of Melbourne’s northern suburbia, she is content to let the attributes of the paint have their way.

There is a painterly robustness to GRANT NIMMO’s enigmatically titled Eat Your Skull. Nimmo doesn’t try to fake his way through faux Romanticism; instead he uses the sharply ascending mountain peak as the ground for a rigorous workout with the brush, with each mark remaining proudly on show. ANN HOWIE has the same strategy in mind for her Somewhere Else III, in which a murky quagmire becomes charged with a squidgy spectacle of paint. Notable


for Howie is the way she moulds her top layer ofpaint around the darker play of underpainting, to give her shrubbery in particular a certain rounded clarity.

Countering the chunky ‘painter’s paintings’ are thenow regulation transcendent works, which seek to lift the observer out of their position and into some immersive otherworld. Leading the charge is Glister, Port Phillip Bay by LYNNE BOYD. Here we observe the evanescent effects of light across the bay, where the watery paintwork facilitates our material dispersal into the elements. The fleetingness is such that the vision fails even to reach the corners of the canvas. KATHRYN RYAN’s Farm Hedges in Winter,meanwhile, pitches the trees into an opaque shroud of luminous fog. The trees transcend their literal significance to become conduits between the secular and earthly, and the spiritual and otherworldly. Winter Landscape by PETRA REECE shares in Ryan’s chilly sentiments, through its persuasive evocation of atmosphere. The focus here is on the effects of winter, and its tangible incursion into physical space, as recorded by the receding contrast between the barren bush in the foreground and house enveloped in mist.

Twilight, Williamstown by MELANIE SCAIFE is another exercise in distance, permeated by a formless sense

of longing. Scaife’s work is less an empirical observation than a meditation on phenomena and impermanence. WAYNE VINEY concurs with Mount Macedon Evening II—a painting that reminds us of the inherent ability of landscape to move us in incalculable ways. This solemn paean to the aching beauty of evening light hits all the right notes.

JANET GREEN also powerfully evokes atmosphere, but the bucolic hills of South Gippsland are her primary muse. Her painting, Loch, brilliantly espouses the vibrancy of the region, but charges her otherwise serene vision with a sense of anticipation—this is the scene of something about to occur. JASON FOSTER, on the other hand, presents us with a similar panorama, but after the event. His After the Storm, Corner Inlet, is elegantly painted, with pointed nods to both Classicism and early Modernism. The subject’s grandeur is held in check by the flatness of colour and the careful stress placed on tonality.

No such limit is placed on the grandeur of JASON

CORDERO’s Darkness of Day. This grandiose and cinematic fantasy is hopelessly extravagant, and intoxicatingly beautiful. A past winner of the Prize, Cordero goes for broke with a picture that somehow depicts a time before time itself—certainly, no


humans are present. This is nature in her glory writ large. Another past winner, ANDREW MEZEI, similarly delights in excess. In style his Transition is fixated with the past, but in outlook its concern is for the future. This utopian vision, where the sun alights on distant pockets of clear water and where kangaroos roam at will, is beset by the remnants of man; copper pipes that are now being reclaimed by the earth.

Undoolya Morning by ALLYSON PARSONS pitches our view across boundless outcrops of rock, but is remarkable for its dextrous use of colour. The steep depth of field leads to an almost vertigo effect, but is controlled by the luminous colours and sharptonality. Govetts Leap Vista by GARRY PETTITT achieves a similar, dizzying effect, by elevating our position above the dramatic canyon. Pettitt recalls Eugène von Guérard’s depiction of theWeatherboard Falls (1863) but does so to remind us of nature’s enduring capacity to inspire awe and wonder.

There is no such assurance or elevated vantage point in CAMILLA TADICH’s Supermarket, PheasantCreek—only uncertainty and dread. This ambitious and large work is almost entirely comprised of opaque blackness. The artist denies us depth, perspective—anything that would give us a handle

on the situation. The encroaching darkness and fallen sign exacerbate the sense of quiet, almost uncanny unease. DALE COX confirms our fears of catastrophe in Tract 19, where a segment of earth is seen thoroughly ablaze. In containing the event to a disjointed portion of land, Cox reduces the imminent threat, and we become helpless observers as the devastation unfolds. TONY LLOYD also nullifies the senses in his Expanded Sphere, where we become mute onlookers to an indefinable spectacle of nature. This is a strange proposition; crisp, monochromatic painting describes the vaporization of Tibet’s Mount Kailash in the atmosphere above. Like the master illusionist, Lloyd renders reality as suspect andfallible.

Reality is placed under no such doubt in KRISTEN

HEADLAM’s December. This matter-of-fact ode to the everyday is quietly assured and comforting, evenif the fencing could use some repair. Another kind of reality inhabits PETER SERWAN’s Promised Land—the reality faced by suburbanites across Australia. ‘Sweet’ is how the marketers have pitched the new estate, and it is left to the urinating dog to dispel the falsehood of this urban myth. How else to follow but with DAVID FRAZER’s Septic, which finds its poetry not in the glories of nature, but in a public toilet facility. There is a simple and honest integrity in this


work—it does not seek to enshrine or unduly elevate its subject, but provides instead a casual, reflective moment. Frazer’s art celebrates the little things. So too does the Visual Symphony of PEI PEI HE. Melbourne traffic on a wet day is hardly a subject one might favour, but in breaking the scene down to a ‘symphony’ of small parts, He finds the sparkle within the dour.

In Flesh of Coastal Fire Trail, CHRISTOPHE STIBIO uses the detail of shredded paper to map the landscape, marking his journey through it as an ongoing and evolving event. The speckled paper grounding gives his work a frailty that is strangely attuned to the natural environment, affording us a sense of immersion within rather than propriety over the land. Two final works indicate a kind of sapience or worldliness that emanates from the land itself. In HEIDI YARDLEY’s Broken Tree – Mallacoota Inlet, the tree writhes and gestures as might a person—indeed, as a figure painter it should be no surprise that Yardley’s landscape reads more like an intimate portrait, steeped in nuance and character. The same might be said for DYLAN BRENINGER’s enigmatic Tree of Ignorance. Again, the twisted and gnarledtree placed squarely in the foreground reads more like a portrait of a withered and obtuse old man. The only tree of its kind, it seems to have survived

despite the odds, feeding on the river that runs directly into its roots. The mountains and clouds rise majestically on either side of the tree, framing it as an unlikely hero of the Prize.

There are many heroes of the 2012 John Leslie Art Prize; every finalist described here reaffirms the importance of landscape painting. The works extend its noble trajectory, to give us a peek into where this time-honoured tradition might be heading.


Lynne BoydDylan BreningerAnnie BurnsJuris CerinsJason CorderoDale CoxChris DelprattJason FosterDavid FrazerJanet GreenPei Pei HeKristen HeadlamAnn HowieAlan JonesTony LloydAndrew MezeiViv MillerDavid MooreGrant NimmoColin PalethorpeAllyson ParsonsGarry PettittPetra Reese

Mark RoddaKathryn RyanMelanie ScaifeMia SchoenPeter SerwanKate ShawChristophe StibioCamilla TadichWayne VineyAlice WormaldHeidi YardleyWilliam Young


SHORTLISTED ARTISTS

KATE SHAWForest Caves2011Acrylic and resin on board120 x 240cm

NOTE: IMAGES ARE NOT TO SCALE


ALICE WORMALDGiddy Heights2012Oil on linen122 x 89cm

VIV MILLERAnd Again2012Oil, enamel, pencil & acrylic on linen170 x 130cm


COLIN PALETHORPEHomage to L’incertitude du Poete2012Oil on canvas102 x 76cm

ANNIE BURNSUntitled2012Oil, oil stick & glitter on canvas83 x 137cm



MARK RODDAThe Filter Station (Autumn)2012Oil on marine ply70 x 120cm

WILLIAM YOUNGCuddley Hills to Jeetho2011Acrylic and oil on canvas61 x 76cm


ALAN JONESPainting 922012Acrylic on canvas122 x 90cm

CHRIS DELPRATTStorm Light2010Oil on canvas85 x 90cm



JURIS CERINSPicnic Creek2011Gouache on paper56 x 152cm


DAVID MOORENungerna Storm2012Gouache on paper29 x 38cm

GRANT NIMMOEat Your Skull2012Oil on canvas140 x 140cm



MIA SCHOENJacana Through to Essendon2012Oil and thread on canvas90 x 140cm

ANN HOWIESomewhere Else III2012Oil on canvas121 x 152cm


LYNNE BOYDGlister, Port Phillip Bay2011Oil on linen96 x 125cm



KATHRYN RYANFarm Hedges in Winter2011Oil on linen137 x 183cm


PETRA REECEWinter Landscape2011Oil on canvas122 x 168cm



MELANIE SCAIFETwilight, Williamstown2012Oil on linen92 x 122cm

WAYNE VINEYMount Macedon Evening II2011Oil on board40.5 x 60cm


JANET GREENLoch, South Gippsland2012Acrylic on canvas61 x 152cm



JASON FOSTERAfter the Storm, Corner Inlet2012Oil on canvas80 x 208cm


JASON CORDERODarkness of Day2012Oil on linen122 x 183cm



ANDREW MEZEITransition2012Oil on linen56.6 x 84.3cm


ALLYSON PARSONSUndoolya Morning2012Oil on Belgian linen92 x 152cm



GARRY PETTITTGovetts Leap Vista2011Oil on canvas102 x 152cm


DALE COXTract 192012Acrylic on canvas106 x 152cm



TONY LLOYDExpanded Sphere2012Oil on linen92 x 75cm

CAMILLA TADICHSupermarket, Pheasant Creek2011Oil on linen100 x 150cm


KRISTIN HEADLAMDecember2011Oil on linen100 x 180cm



PETER SERWANPromised Land2012Oil on linen60 x 60cm

DAVID FRAZERSeptic2010Oil on linen95 x 135cm


PEI PEI HEVisual Symphony2012Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas180 x 168cm

CHRISTOPHE STIBIOFlesh of Coastal Fire Trail, Royal National Park2011Natural pigments, acrylic, rice paper & shredded documents on cotton duck132 x 142cm (diptych)



HEIDI YARDLEYBroken Tree – Mallacoota Inlet2011Oil on board25 x 30cm

DYLAN BRENINGERThe Tree of Ignorance2012Oil on canvas122 x 91.5cm


34 / GIPPSLAND ART GALLERY THE 2012 JOHN LESLIE ART PRIZE / 35

JUDGING PANEL

Gabriella CoslovichSenior Arts Writer, The Age

Merle HathawayIndependent Curator and Arts Administrator

Sam LeachArtist

SELECTION PANEL

Brian CastlesMember, Gippsland Art Gallery Advisory Board

Clive Murray-WhiteArtist and Member, Gippsland Art Gallery Advisory Board

Anton VardyDirector, Gippsland Art Gallery

Simon GreggCurator, Gippsland Art Gallery

PAST WINNERSJOHN LESLIE ART PRIZE

2000David Keeling

2002Vera Möller

2004Mark McCarthy

2006Brigid Cole-Adams

2008Andrew Mezei

2010Jason Cordero

EXHIBITION

29 September to 25 November 2012

OPENING & ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNERS

Friday 28 September 6.00pm

The Hon. Peter Ryan MPDeputy Premier of Victoria



Gippsland Art GalleryPort of Sale Civic Centre68-70 Foster StreetSale 3850 VictoriaT +61 3 5142 3372www.wellington.vic.gov.au/gallery

Director: Anton VardyCurator: Simon GreggEducation Coordinator: Louise Van KuykGallery Support Officer: Hailey MowbrayInformation Officer: Lesley ScottGallery Assistant: Helen MasinGallery Technician: Lindsay RobertsGallery Trainee: Josh Heilbuth

OPENMonday to Friday 10.00am to 5.00pmSaturday & Sunday 12.00pm to 4.00pmFor public holiday hours visit website

FREE ENTRY

A cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

ISBN 978-0-9872526-7-8 (pbk.)

Edition: 1,000Design: Lesley Scott / Simon GreggPrinting: Whirlwind

© 2012 This catalogue is copyright.Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any other process without written permission.

Gippsland Art Gallery is proudly owned and operated by Wellington Shire Council with support from the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria

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