NERAM, Armidale
Acrylic Works on Paper

I have completed these smaller works on paper over a period of nearly 2 years, while also working on another series of more abstract and colourful landscapes that are not specific to Tasmania.

I have always loved John Glovers Tasmanian landscapes, and while there I purchased a facsimile of one of his sketchbooks from the Launceston Queen Victoria Art Gallery and Museum. His depiction of the sinuous quality of gum trees initially inspired me to start a series of silhouette style interpretations of forms in the Tasmanian landscape. Many of the photographs I took also had strong contrasts, which prompted me to combine these two reference points, so that I initially had a lot of black imagery on white paper. However as I went on, I could not resist introducing more colour.

Working from John Glover sketches, along with my own photographic references, has led the work to being much more representational than my usual more abstract approach. However I feel it all contributes to the honing of ones technical skills, which ultimately get absorbed into ones overall style.

I like the immediacy of working on paper on a smaller scale, and acrylic paints are extremely versatile in that they can be used to create washes akin to watercolour, and at the other extreme they can be used to create heavy textured/impasto effects. Most of these Tasmanian works have been built up with multiple layers of washes, after initially painting the heavier darker areas in black acrylic. Some of the highlights have been created using a small amount of white impasto, and so technically it all amounts to being a fairly traditional approach to painting.

Kerry Gulliver December 2014