Freerange Organic is a series of landscapes. These works are the beginning of an ongoing challenge to develop my relationship with landscape painting, arising from a somewhat intense interaction with nature and the stunning subject matter here in Reefton which surrounds me and confronts me everyday with its demand to be painted.
In practice I am primarily working from my photographs which serve as a record of particular details but the essence of the image comes from being there in it, absorbing the light and overall feeling of the place. I can travel in almost any direction depending on my inclination, for mountains, snow, frost, bush, town, garden, beach, coast, river, sky, lake, hill, plain or any other unplanned marvels that I discover along the way. Even routine and familiar places can almost always surprise me and the weather also presents its own particular challenges and opportunities.
Stylistically these landscapes required a more stringent dialogue with traditional techniques. Uneasy with contemporary approaches to landscape which seem to be either abstract/conceptual or highly representational, I was looking for a way to engage with landscape which would allow for greater experimentation with form, structure and colour. Our New Zealand moderns, like Edith Collier, Rita Angus, Frances Hodgkins, early McCahon and Woollaston presented a range of stylistic attitudes which I found less romantic and less cliched than current local examples of landscape painting. In particular the modernist expression of form and texture, using colour in combination with mark-making, I find quite liberating.
A visit to the Rita Angus exhibition earlier this year, and a closer look at her wonderful watercolours, although very tightly controlled, convinced me that this kind of technique offers greater scope for freedom of composition, and that it can still coherently articulate ones unique perspective. I have quite a lot to say about the landscape here and will continue to work on providing fresh interpretations on it.
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St Arnaud |
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Windwhistle |
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Garden at Night |
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Harbour |
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North Beach |
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Mt Robert |
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Fault Line |
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Lake Rotoiti 1 |
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Lake Rotoiti 2 |
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Pond |
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Spring Storm |
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Cypress outside the Church |
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Big Tree |
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Soldiers Road |
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Beeches on the Reservoir Track |
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Reefton Race Track |
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Cape Foulwind |
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Lake Daniels Track l |
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Willows in Autumn |
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Evans Pass Lyttleton |
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Rock at Kariotahi Beach |
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Trees at Raglan |
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Beeches Near Lyell |
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Marc's Garden |
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Snow on the Lewis Pass l |
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Snow on the Lewis Pass ll |
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Road to Greymouth |
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Inangahua River |
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