Background
The Idea of landscape is a composite one, slipping often unnoticed between pragmatic matters of land use and occupation on the one hand, and the symbolic, aesthetic, and philosophical realms of art on the other. Both researchers and non-experts alike can be relied upon to entangle these different but always connected senses of landscape. While these slippages (between physical territory; representations of territory; and the various physical processes of transforming territory) make landscape a problematic concept for traditional research, this same quality also becomes a dynamic and generative feature for creative research methodologies.
Contribution
This work activates these definitional, experiential, and conceptual ambiguities endogenous to the landscape idea, partly through its painterly vocabulary (which segues between Romantic and Realist sensibilities, and between representational and abstract handling), and methodologically, by synthesising disparate forms of data collected from direct contact, from photographic references of local sites, and form abstraction and art-historical visual elements. Integrating and entangling direct and mediated experiences, real and simulated spaces, romantic imaginings and everyday local amenity, the work argues for a conception of landscape as always unsettled.
Significance
This work was shortlisted for the John Leslie Art Prize, one of Australia’s most prestigious prizes for contemporary Australian landscape painting. One of 52 finalists selected from 503 entries, the work was blind peer-reviewed and judged by 4 industry professionals including eminent contemporary artists, Juan Ford and Sam Leach. The finalist’s exhibition, held at the Gippsland Art Gallery, was attended by 9605 visitors including 347 present at the season launch. Along with a hard copy exhibition catalogue, the work reaches audiences through the Gallery’s permanent online image galleries of the prize finalists.
Extent
Medium: Oil on linen
Size: 183cm x 122 cm
Event
2024 John Leslie Art Prize
Publisher
Gippsland Art Gallery
Place of publication
Gippsland Art Gallery 70 Foster Street, Sale, Victoria, Australia