Landscapes Within September 29 - October 16
Ben spent 2017 and 2018 living on Lord Howe Island where he reinvigorated his love of painting and developed a deep interest in depicting the natural landscape as a source of inspiration, wonder and rejuvenation.
His paintings aim to show both the natural beauty of the landscape but also, to evoke our own emotional and personal response to it. His imagery is derived from observation, combining multiple views, memory and imagination. Since returning to Avalon his work has focused on Barrenjoey Headland and its Pittwater surrounds.
This new group of landscape paintings is a further exploration of the Pittwater region but also, The Snowy Mountain areas of Perisher and Charlottes Pass and Lord Howe Island. The focus of these works is predominantly, observation, memory, experience and imagination.
‘All are used to explore the landscapes in front of me, but more so, the landscapes within me. As such each painting is not a picture of a view. It is more like a memory, or a thinking about that place’.
‘These landscapes are represented by my time spent within them.’
‘As I paint, I often find my observations of the spaces around me begin to change and I start to think about my experience within those places. During these moments I am often thinking about the first time I was in that landscape or remembering past visits. What the weather was like then as compared to now. Who I was with or was I alone? I am comparing my emotional reactions. Are they the same? Have they changed? All these thoughts or questions help to inform how I then make decisions about that painting.’
‘It is through the act of painting these places that I can imagine moving through them. The painted lines in my work represent the topography of the land. I am imagining walking along, over and within its contours.’
‘Observing and thinking about these places, remembering my past experiences within them and imagining I am still there even when I have physically left, I can almost feel the landscape in my mind and as such it is a means that I can return to it time and time again.’
