Over the last week I have been sorting out my paintings for my Brisbane exhibition New Horizons - Beyond Landscape at Doggett Street Gallery in Newstead Brisbane. http://www.doggett.com.au/ExhibitionFrame.aspx?ExhibitionId=948
I have made my own selection. I have asked a friend who does not know much about art but "knows what he likes" to select ones he thinks work and ones that don't - for him. I have asked my family also but they are overly diplomatic I find. I will now ask a fellow artist whose judgement is well informed. Finally I will look at each painting and try to see it in the ways in which these people have seen it. It is very interesting seeing how people come raw to a particular work of art and how they see it in terms of their own world and the visual and emotional aspects of their life experiences and history. The final decision as to what to put in the exhibition and what to leave out will be mine and in the end probably based on my own gut instinct. It will probably not differ that much from my initial selection. It will be based on the ideas I am working on at the moment although, saying that, my work is not conceptual but based on a feeling for a place and a consciousness of the earth's history and it's resultant shape and colour. I enjoy landscapes where the rocks and "bones of the earth" are exposed. I am in awe of the ruggedness and uncompromising "otherness" of dry uncultivated landscapes. That was what I loved about the Flinders Ranges. Next year I will be going painting to the MacDonnell Ranges, Kata Tjuta and Simpsons Gap. That will be a real treat for an artist.