Floating World by Penelope Oates: 16-29 Oct + Celebration 3pm Sat 20 Oct 2018

About The Exhibition

"Floating World", this collection of works reflects my approach to the natural forms that have always inspired me as an artist and continue to be the main focus of my practice.

For me the landscape always takes centre stage and my sense of self as an artist is closely tied to my love of the colours, forms and textures that I have been so acutely aware of since childhood when I would have made my first awkward but very important attempts to respond to these visual elements, the intent has not changed, the skill and materials certainly have.

My work is in no way representative of a particular place but rather an expression of the changing character and temperament of the natural world around us. Each image I create is an interpretation of some of the shifting seasonal moods, which happen all over the world at different times and with differing effects...today we see more and more evidence of seasons being out of synchronicity.

I have used the word ÍšfloatingÍ› in the title of this exhibition is a metaphor for the shifting, changing, transient nature of natural forms that seems to float in and out of my view or my radar as an artist, sometimes these snippets of views become a focal point where I want to zoom in on a particular texture or feature, at other times such forms become the overall backdrop where time and distance merge together. It also references my practice as an artist directly where my approach to art making derives from my own memories and thoughts that float in and out of my head loosely guiding me when I begin a work...ultimately, however, it is the material process that directs me through to resolution.

Finally, this exhibition is a nod to the exceptional work of 17th to 19th Century Japanese printers from the Ukiyo-e School, whose travel scenes and landscapes captured the beauty and power of nature through a beautiful economy of line, wonderfully gradated skies and imaginative compositions. It was from looking through my family collection of limited edition Hokusai prints that inspired me to introduce an etched, linear quality into my work which I am now suitable obsessed with.

Mark making through overlapping a multitude of lines is now an essential part of my painting repertoire and seems to satisfy my quest to find a way of re-introducing drawing back into my practice.

About The Artist

Studied for a Bachelor of Arts after leaving school. Focused my studies on design and drawing, soon after completing my degree I felt lost and ended up window dressing before embarking on a second degree in stage and costume design at NIDA back in the mid 90s. I then proceeded to have various art related jobs from set designing through to model making and illustration jobs before finally deciding on some financial stability and completing a Dip Ed so I could teach art to kids.

For a period of 10 years or so I built up my finances, got a mortgage, found a wonderful husband, built a great house together with a studio in the picturesque Hawkesbury and revisited my own art practice. I now only teach a couple of days a week and indulge in my own practice one every other day. It is no coincidence that an artist that is inspired by nature ends up living in a rural setting and feel very lucky to share my creative endeavours with my fine furniture designer/maker husband who has his own huge shed to work and yell expletives from when a piece of furniture or sculpture won't bend to his will.

My work is characterised by layers of coloured inks, acrylics and a multitude of lines made with a soldering iron- a more recent addition to my repertoire of tools. I see myself not so much as a painter, but as a mark maker, and the more recent use of the soldering iron to lightly burn lines back into the surface of timber boards is more indicative of a desire to introduce a drawing element into my work. I find the process of making linear marks across the surface of an artwork very cathartic and it really harkens back to my childhood experiences of wanting to draw with a very fine ink pen.

For me the landscape is the vehicle through which I can express myself intuitively with an unrehearsed approach.. I don't always know which direction I'm heading in with a work before I begin, but I love the freedom of not knowing and allowing the medium/s to direct me before pulling into an image that I'm happy with. My sense of colour, although often muted, and the textural interplay of layers of ink, acrylic and etched lines are what excite me as an artist...I don't have to look very far to see this in nature and of course the balance of these visual elements is what makes a work successful.