Micrographia

Robert Hooke's Micrographia (1664) is a visual atlas of everyday life, under the microscope. It was compelling at the time because it drew attention to something previously unnoticed. The tree series was a rendering of the forgotten/neglected/unnoticed landscape. A call for attention.

At the moment I'm focussed on the pavement. The walk to work. And noticing.

Moving on

Breathe 2016: Scenic Rim landscapes in liquid graphite was everything I imagined it to be. I created a forest in a sacred space.

Many thanks to all who came along.

A few images from exhibition (Click Mick Photography).

Anniversaries. It's been 20 years!

Dear Ali George,

Did you remember that it was 20 years ago, in 1996, that we held our first exhibition. Social Fabrics at the Metro Arts Gallery. Textile art (you) and found object sculpture (me) in that beautiful long white gallery. Mum was still young enough to climb up the stairs!

I don't think I have any photos of that exhibition. I'll have a look when I'm at Barney View next.

Many many thanks for your encouragement and companionship on the wonderful journey that it is.

Much love
Sue

Exfoliation

This week I finally got around to photographing this work from the late 1990s. It was in an exhibition at the Moray Street gallery as a paper collage and then, for about ten years it was in every exhibition I had. I painted over it in layers, year after year.  Then finally in around 2005, when I painted my Petticoat series, I decided to stop altering this one.

If you look carefully you can see it is exfoliating, tiny glucose shaped (carbon ring) flakes of paper. These are remnants of thesis.  I cut it up and incorporated it into the painting.

Petticoat
1998-2005
Sue George
acrylic and pen on paper and board, 1000 x 1000 mm

Breathtaking MyriamB

This week an email from Atelier Aspecifico MyriamB popped into my inbox and took my breath away.  I stumbled upon MyriamB in her studio in San Lorenzo when I was visiting once and taking a morning walk. The studio was a wonderland of collected things of beauty and fascination. I could have spent hours there.

Al Ghazzali and alchemy

I chanced upon Al Ghazzali, firstly through a BBC podcast and then by wandering through the net and finding his 'The Alchemy of Happiness".  So much simple joy in existing treasures.

And I read a 'parable' of sorts about two countries, competing to create the greatest artwork. One creates a dazzling colourful work and the other, directly opposite, an empty, shiny surface in white marble which reflects the colour in muted splendour.

What a restorative and inspiring focus!

This is what emerges from the works I am painting at the moment. This is how they express themselves and I have struggled at times to explain why they resonate with me ... and therefore keep emerging.  The white space, the empty space, speaks volumes about the trees. It reflects them and reverences them.  It calls attention to the 'life' around us which we seem to dismiss.

study, 300 x 300 mm
acrylic and graphite on paper and board
2015

Evening light

Surrounded by trees. The view from the studio.

acrylic on canvass
2016