Belinda Wilson The ghosts of Mr Wilson
Front image: Searching for ghost gums | 2017 | Oil on canvas | 122 x 153cm | $4800.00
Melbourne artist, Belinda Wilson, is currently at the nitty gritty end of her Master of Fine Art wherein she deliberates the widespread effects that weather has on our psyche. Looking intrinsically at how growing up in Regional Victoria, where sometimes long periods of intense drought can have devastating outcomes on its rural environment, Belinda’s art attempts to highlight how the very force of nature’s upheavals can turn once lush green pastures into arid wastelands, threaten the lives of cattle and stock, simultaneously jeopardizing the livelihood of farmers, creating a formidable force, often with devastating outcomes.
Using both the canvas and also her unique technique with digital photography, Belinda illustrates a vision of the Australian bush placing large figures in the foreground, looking pensive and contemplating the surrounding landscape. Her paintings have an almost ethereal presence, with a wash like surface, which could almost be mistaken for water colours; before our eyes, they appear to gently unfold with shifting subtle hues of blues, ochres’, and greens, (the colours of nature), that rest on the canvas in broad blocks of paint. I can’t help but feel that these carefully intended planes hark back to images of the Impressionists and the subtle backdrops that were captured in the landscapes of Cezanne.
Art can be perceived as a window into the soul, it delves deep within the subconscious and brings to the fore memories of forgotten times. In Belinda’s art, isolated figures, and contoured lines, which resemble the markings on a weather chart are purposely placed to suggest an element of the geographical nature that she wants to convey. A hint of a hill, or a flat plane, or even a long and winding road, as we focus our eyes on the foreground we can almost disappear into its vortex, swept up by the soothing parameters of the sweeping lines that undulate before us and beckon the viewer to take this journey into the unknown. The figures often appear alone and isolated taking in their surrounds, mostly facing away from the viewer as if the world belongs only to them; introspective and brooding, it is deeply contemplative work, rich with connotation and lyrical imagery.
Anita Traynor, 2017
Combating extreme weather Oil on canvas 122 x 153cm 2016 $4800.00
Mr Wilson Oil on canvas 122 x 153cm 2017 $4800.00
Promise on the horizon Oil on canvas 90x 120cm 2016 $3200.00
The rain man Pastel on watercolour paper 60 x 90cm 2016 $3200.00
Weathered man Pastel on watercolour paper 90 x 60cm 2016 $3200.00
Weather prediction Oil, pencil and pastel on watercolour paper, 66 x 75cm 2016 $2200.00
Local weariness Oil, pencil and pastel on watercolour paper 66 x 75cm 2016 $2200.00
Sentimental land Pastel on paper 45 x 60cm 2017 $1200.00
A place I know Pastel on paper 45 x 60cm 2017 $1200.00
Waiting for rain Oil on canvas 30 x 30cm 2015 $800.00
Untitled Conte on papaer 30 x 30cm 2015 $695.00
Untitled Conte on paper 30 x 30cm 2015 $695.00
Land life Digital drawing edition of 10 48 x 60cm 2015 $900.00
Anita Traynor Fine Art Consultancy BELINDA WILSON | The Ghosts of Mr. Wilson Opening | Friday 20th October 5.30-7.30pm On view | 20th October - 17 November 2017 Gallery hours | Friday, Saturdays, Sundays 11.00am - 4.00pm or by appointment Level 1, Address: First Floor, 970 High Street, Armadale, VIC, 3143 Mobile: 0413 157 157 Email: anita@artsgroup.com.au web site www.anitatraynor.com Sponsor: Link Arts and Culture RMIT University