Allude – Janice Lane & Simon C Smith – SALA 2014
To allude is to make a more or less indirect reference to a person place or event; to connote or hint at an experience. Once alluded the viewer makes their own personal connection generating new meanings, the nature of which cannot be predetermined by the artist.
In Allude Janice Lane and Simon Smith explore how the referencing of people, places and events transcends the internal. To allude through representation the artists present visual interpretations of memories as internal and external ‘landscapes’ yet the ultimate translation remains indeterminable.
It is the personal experiences of places and events that the artists draw upon for their inspiration, creating visual threads for the viewer to access new meanings. Using photographs to trigger memories and connections to emotional landscapes, the artists have created a range of evocative allusions.
JANICE LANE is a painter and printmaker who focuses on the complex nature of identity of self and personal memories that are altered, obliterated or recreated through forgetfulness. By manipulating nostalgic objects and materials in her work she alludes to memories lost by time that transcend the private and generate new meanings through manipulation.
“For most of us it is impossible to imagine the oblivion of total forgetfulness, where information about our past, and our very sense of self are lost to us. Focusing on the concept of ‘forgetting’ these paintings sit in a liminal position between knowledge and oblivion, on the edge of memory and forgetting.
Although many of the images are based on family photos using objects that hold personal meaning and provide triggers to memory; (an old lace tablecloth unpacked from a tea-chest used when emigrating to Australia; china plates kept ‘for best’); through the visual translation of forgetfulness they are re- invented, reconstructed and altered bringing into being something that would otherwise be unseen. Not a memory but an allusion of one.
I currently work from my studio in Piccadilly in the Adelaide hills on a farm I share with my husband, four very geriatric sheep, and border collie. Although I have lived in the Adelaide hills for 26 years, I emigrated to Australia from England as an 11 year old child and lived in Peterborough in the first year. The memory of the change in light, colour and space when I came to Australia has influenced these paintings that allude to memory. Simon and I met whilst both studying for our Masters in Painting in 2012 at UniSA.”
SIMON SMITH is a painter who explores how the dualism of aestheticisms influences and impacts on the cultural human interaction with the Southern Australian landscape. He investigates how the allusion of contemplative references to both past and present human contact with the landscape provide an insight to the dichotomy of both aestheticisms and narratives of a pre to post-colonial Southern Australian history.
Celebrating and glorifying the aesthetical dualities of a remote and isolated South Australian landscape inform and underpin the work throughout this exhibition. Remote Western South Australia is a beautiful, sparsely populated and rugged landscape of contrasting geographical features. From marine parks to, crown land, freehold land, pastoralists, conservation parks, national parks native title and exclusion zones (WPA-Woomera/Maralinga) the area is a palimpsest of religious, political, commercial, social, spiritual and cultural interest. Seemingly desolate and sparse, the contested landscapes of Western South Australia thread historical and complex narratives through the body of this new work. I have referenced symbolic, historical places and objects using a variety of oil painting techniques to depict the narratives, emotions and essence of immediate and past perceptions of this complex landscape.
The development of these oil paintings has evolved from a series of studies undertaken in the proposal stages of the project. The artworks depict intricacies of a complex, personal relationship built on experiential, multi-sensory experiences and reflections in the sample landscape. The common thread within the works portrays these experiences as ones defined by the space, movement, colour, contrast and harmonies of an isolated area of Australia. The representation of these elements across the body of work, aims to attract, captivate and challenge the viewer while drawing their attention to consider the interwoven narratives portrayed within the images.
Simon has lived and worked as an arts educator in Western South Australia for the past eight years. His relationship with the ocean and surrounding landscapes evolved from his passion for riding the clean, perfect waves of Cactus Beach and beyond. He is dedicated to the preservation of the region and uses his artwork to portray his evolving aesthetic.
Allude will invite the viewer to enter and contemplate visual representation of both personal and cultural memories by the artists, generating new meanings through visual connection and emotive engagement. Focussing on emotional responses to viewer led interpretations of the work, the body of work in this exhibition will allude to captivate and evoke the personal in response.
Simon C Smith – Caravan in the Sky – 110 x 70cm – oil on canvas – 2013
Janice Lane – Sunshine on my Window – 70 x 61cm, 2012 – mixed media on paper