Euan Macleod — High and Low by Denise Tsui

High and Low A solo exhibition by Euan Macleod

The Nock Art Foundation

High and Low A solo exhibition by Euan Macleod March 20 - May 19, 2017

Letter From The Chairman Euan Macleod is in his element painting en plein air. Like the hunched figure in Yellow Mountain (Golem), Euan paints standing. Feet apart, he attacks the surface in front of him with the energy of a maestro seeking to capture the enormity of the panorama before him in an instant. He sculpts with paint, molding the viscous colours with deft, gestural movements. In his hand is the weapon of choice—a brush or a palette knife—held at arm’s length. Like an orchestral conductor, he needs space to move unrestricted; looking, thrusting, scraping, reacting, looking again, changing. The object of attack in front of him, on one table, the palette and paints on another. Cadenced movement from one to the other as a rhythmic flow of strokes and jabs, rubbing and painting, drawing and smearing, unveil a miracle in the making. He paints quickly, seizing the nuanced and subtle changes in the shadows, the movement of the clouds, people scampering up narrow mountain paths. Having been on a number of trips with Euan, I knew he would love Huangshan. After the success of his trip to Hong Kong and Guilin in 2014, he was hungry to return. Euan wanted to visit another iconic expression of what is China. He is an artist who thrives on something new. Something different. Something outside his comfort zone. Euan is an artist who loves a challenge. We discussed a number of options and decided on a place that has inspired artists for millennia. Huangshan is a mountain range in the southern Anhui Province that has been the frequent subject of traditional Chinese painting and literature. Euan arrived with his paints, his talent and his inexhaustible energy but he was worried. How would he carry the tools of his trade? What was to be the logistics of moving the finished work along the narrow pathways that wound around the mountains and cliff faces? How would we stack and carry the paintings? How would we get up and down the mountains? Huangshan is not an easy place to navigate. There is a labyrinth of stairs, tunnels and narrow tracks that go on for miles. It was also peak tourist season and steering our way through the paths proved especially challenging given the throngs of visitors seeking the best vantage points. Although we elected to stay in one of the hotels within the National Park at the top of the mountain to maximize the time spent painting, there is no transport to the top—food, beverages, linen and paints, everything must be hand-carried. It was not easy to find quiet spots away from the crowds where the virtuoso could stretch out and perform. It was not easy, but as this exhibition, “High and Low” attests, it was worth the effort. The works capture the grandeur of Huangshan in the unique Macleod style. Figuration and landscape. Man emerging from the tunnel to the sunlight, the stairways and dark places that burst into daylight revealing the splendor of the mountains. Descending and ascending, Man made small in comparison. Even the weather played its part; umbrellas in the rain, clouds rolling through the valleys. All were inspiration transformed in the hands of the alchemist. The final part of our trip was Shanghai where the skyscrapers seemed to echo the majesty of nature but where the verticals were constructed, not formed, where Man humbled was now hurrying, engaged, preoccupied and mesmerized by digital toys. The highs and lows of Shanghai echo not nature but stock markets, construction cranes and ever taller epitaphs to Man’s commercial aspirations. Euan, ever the chameleon, adjusted, looked, painted, scraped, jabbed and changed, again, harnessing the essence and poetry of the place. He has delivered on what I hoped when I established the Nock Art Foundation. I wanted to bring great artists, great mark makers, to scenes that inspired, scenes that I love, and Euan is testament to the magic that can be created as a result. Michael Nock Chairman Nock Art Foundation

Highs and Lows “Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.”

Henri Frédéric Amiel 1

Any person who has had the opportunity to watch Euan Macleod in action will, without a doubt, attest to the impassioned energy that radiates from the man. Macleod’s energy is infectious, the speed by which he paints is extraordinary. A painter of landscapes but not a landscape painter, Macleod observes the scene before him with his eyes, yet captures its very essence through an interpretation from his mind, inscribing a part of his subconscious spirit into the painting.

Nonetheless, Macleod’s muted palette—a signature of his oeuvre—introduces a deep redness that is unnatural to the rock formations of Huangshan, while also stripping back its vibrant evergreen foliage to strokes of subdued moss hue. As the painting developed in his studio, Macleod came to be reminded of the Biblical story of Moses and the monumental parting of the Red Sea. What began as a landscape painting finds itself grounded in memory and narrative. Alongside Macleod’s canvas are a suite of works on paper painted en plein air. In Macleod’s monograph The Painter in the Painting, author Gregory O’Brien describes the artist as “a shoveller and mover of oil paint, an orchestrator of clotted and flowing passages, of drizzling, blustery and occasionally monumental forms.” Witnessing Macleod painting, one is immediately drawn to the artist’s confidence and deliberateness of each loaded brush stroke, of his immense focus and swiftness in application. It is an act of physical labour of a different kind than that of his studio practice, which involves what Macleod calls, a “siege mentality” where he feels locked in battle with his canvas, back and forth until there’s a point where the composition appears satisfactory. The en plein air paintings are raw, intuitive and unfiltered. He paints in the ephemeral moment, capturing all and who that appear before him through the brush. 2

Over a career spanning more than three decades, Macleod’s painting expeditions have taken him all across the globe, from the icy waters of Antarctica to the tragedy laden Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, from the central Australian desert back to his native New Zealand. In 2014, Macleod experienced the bustling cityscape of Hong Kong and China’s Guilin. While some destinations made but a fleeting connection with the artist, others have inspired new bodies of work and fostered a lasting presence. This exhibition is, perhaps, one of the latter. Marking his return to China, “High and Low” came about following a week-long painting trip in late 2016 to the remarkable Huangshan (“Yellow Mountain”) in the southern Anhui Province. A UNESCO listed World Heritage site since 1990, Huangshan is notable for its magnificent natural beauty, which has been an inspiration to centuries of Chinese art and literature, including a resurgence of traditional shanshui (“mountain-water”) painting in the Ming Dynasty. Typical to the style, shanshui paintings are loaded with delicate washes and highly detailed ink strokes, accurately depicting the mountains and foliage before them. Conceptually however, shanshui painters portrayed not simply nature as it were but attempted to convey their philosophies and beliefs of the landscape. Likewise, Macleod trowels deeper than the surface appearance of Huangshan. Through an aesthetic of landscape painting that can be described as “Australasian”—heavy strokes and smears of paint—Macleod shapes his vision of the granite rocks and pines that materialize seemingly from mystical clouds, and injects them with the presence of human figures, both real and imaginary. One of several paintings Macleod created upon returning to his Sydney studio, Yellow Mountain (Golem) is a central work to the exhibition. The painting captures the words of Swiss poet and moral philosopher Henri Frédéric Amiel who speculated that “every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul,” insofar that to truly connect with a landscape is to not only see beyond the mere exterior, rather it is to find oneself within the landscape and to evoke a response that resonates from an internal space. To the right of the painting, a ghostly figure perched on the edge of a winding stairwell peers down at an unassuming passerby strolling casually. In the background, heavy, vertical paint strokes sculpt the tall peaks and pointed forms of the mountains. The dark, towering figure, a repeating element in many of Macleod’s earlier works, is often a point of interest and interpretation. The figure could be seen as the presence of the artist transplanted into the landscape. Yet, the figure, the artist has noted, also bears an uncanny resemblance to his father, with whom he held a special bond. Psychoanalysis aside, the figure may just as easily reflect the inner self of whomever gazes upon it; the figure could be you, equally it could be me.

A group of six en plein air studies of Shanghai, where Macleod concluded his China trip, poses a curious juxtaposition to the Huangshan images in both colour and composition. Macleod’s Shanghai river studies highlight an urban social phenomenon that is increasingly observed in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai and other major Asian metropolises. Despite the presence of multiple figures in each work, Macleod brings to our attention the lack of social interaction between people. In Shanghai river study (White shirts), the figures have likely never crossed paths in real life and are a composite of people walking through in the course of Macleod producing the painting, nevertheless the final resulting image speaks loudly of a non-interaction. While in Shanghai river study (Mobiles), the figures are engrossed in their smartphones, appearing totally oblivious of their surroundings. Meanwhile a largely grey palette encapsulates the feeling of the concrete jungle that is Shanghai. From the labyrinthine paths and passages of Huangshan, from mysterious caves to the sloping steps of the mountains, Macleod explores the grandeur of a place that has enthused and fascinated artists for millennia. Charlie Chaplin once said, “I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.” However I may have interpreted Macleod’s new body of paintings, it is but one way to perceive them. Echoing Chaplin, Macleod makes a point of avoiding overcrowding his audience with a particular set of ideas, rather he desires for his paintings to stand on their own, seeking and inviting the individual to respond to them, digging from within their heart and mind. Denise Tsui Curator Nock Art Foundation

While across most of Macleod’s works, he often allows his use of colours to organically adapt in such a way that it renders reality, Red Yellow Mountain (Moses) is a painting that speaks of intervention over representation. At first glance the composition is clear: a man at one of Huangshan’s many lookout points, gazing out into the mountains and mist.

Excerpt from Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary entry, 31 October, 1852

O’Brien, Gregory, Euan Macleod: The Painter in the Painting, Sydney: Piper Press 2010, p.

Yellow Mountain (Golem)

Self Portrait? Going Down - YM

2016 oil on acrylic on polyester 180 x 150 cm

2016 oil on polyester 180 x 137 cm

黃山 (石人)

自畫像？沿路往下黃山

Climbing out of mist

Red Yellow Moutain (Moses)

2016 oil on acrylic on polyester 180 x 137 cm

2016 oil on polyester 180 x 137 cm

在霧中拾級而上

紅色的黃山 (摩西)

2 at cave exit 在穴口的兩人

2016 oil on acrylic on polyester 100 x 124 cm Figures going down in cave 進洞穴的人

2016 oil on polyester 167 x 111 cm

Figures & mountains in mist 霧中的人與山

2016 acrylic on polyester 124 x 100 cm

Black umbrella Yellow Mountain 黑傘在黃山中

2016 acrylic on polyester 120 x 84 cm

Diptych (from Hotel) 雙聯畫 (來自酒店)

2016 acrylic on polyester 120 x 168 cm

Large Golem study

Climbing (internal) stairs

2016 acrylic on paper 80 x 66 cm

巨型石人考察

攀爬 (穴內的) 樓梯

Dark mountains

Safety rails

2016 acrylic on paper 80 x 66 cm

暗黑的山嶺

安全欄

Umbrella & mist

Yellow Mountain — Moses study

2016 acrylic on paper 80 x 66 cm

2016 acrylic on paper 81 x 67 cm

傘與霧

黃山– 摩西考察

Shanghai river study (Mobiles) 13/10/16 上海河畔眾考察 (手機) 13/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Shanghai river study (White shirts) 13/10/16 上海河畔眾考察 (白衣) 13/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Shanghai buildings 1 14/10/16 上海大廈 (1) 14/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Shanghai buildings 2 14/10/16 上海大廈 (2) 14/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Shanghai river study (With child) 13/10/16 上海河畔眾考察 (帶孩子) 3/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Shanghai river study (Figure) 13/10/16 上海河畔眾考察 (人們) 13/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

From hotel (Umbrellas) 10/10/16 酒店窗外 (雨傘) 10/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

From hotel (Crowd) 10/10/16 酒店窗外 (人群) 10/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Umbrella & mist study 傘與霧考察

2016 acrylic on paper 58 x 38 cm

Misty mountain study 10/16 霧裡山考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 58 x 38 cm

Staircase study (Climbing) 10/16 樓梯考察 (攀爬) 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 58 x 38 cm

Cave study (Central light) 樓梯考察 (點亮) 2016 acrylic on paper 58 x 38 cm

Cave study (Towards light) 10/16 洞穴 (走向光明) 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Twin towers 8/10/16 雙子塔 8/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Vertical tower 8/10/16 垂直的塔 8/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 58 x 38 cm

Grey horizon 8/10/16 灰濛濛的天 8/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Vertical selfie 9/10/16 垂直的自拍照 9/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Mist 1 10/10/16 霧 1 10/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Mountains with pink sky 9/10/16 粉紅天色下的山 9/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Mist 2 10/10/16 霧 2 10/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Mist V 10/16 霧 V 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 50 x 33 cm

Mountains with yellow sky 9/10/16 昏黃天色下的山 9/10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 58 cm

Tall cave study 10/16 高峭的洞穴考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 57 x 25 cm

Red umbrella 10/16 紅傘 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 40 x 30 cm

Golem study 10/16 石人考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 29 x 38 cm

Pink umbrella 10/16 粉紅的傘 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 40 x 30 cm

Diagonal stairs study 10/16 樓梯的側面考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 29 x 38 cm

2 Figures on path 10/16 兩人在路上 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 29 x 38 cm

Cave study with light exit 10/16 洞穴考察與光明的出口 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 29 cm

Cave 10/16 洞穴 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 40 x 30 cm

Stairs & mist study 10/16 樓梯與霧考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 29 cm

2 Under umbrella 10/16 傘下的兩人 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 38 x 29 cm

Study wedge 10/16 斷塊山考察 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 36 x 29 cm

Stairs/Diamond 10/16 鑽型樓梯 10/16 2016 acrylic on paper 33 x 25 cm

Going down study

Painter study

2016 acrylic on paper 66 x 50 cm

爬樓梯往下考察

畫家考察

Biography

Euan Macleod was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1956. He attained a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting) in 1979 from Canterbury University in Christchurch, and moved to Sydney, Australia, in 1981. Macleod has been the subject of over 50 solo shows in Australia and New Zealand and has partaken in numerous group exhibitions in both Australia and internationally. His works are held in many private and public collections, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Auckland, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum. His survey exhibition, “Euan Macleod – Painter”, curated by Gregory O’Brien, has been travelling around New Zealand since 2015 and will be on tour through to the end of 2018. He has won a number of prestigious art prizes including the Archibald Prize in 1999, the 2000 Tattersall’s Landscape Prize, the Sulman Prize in 2001, the Blake Prize for Religious Painting in 2006, the inaugural NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize in 2008, the Gallipoli Art Prize and the Tattersall’s Landscape Prize in 2009 as well as the King’s School Art Prize in 2011. Macleod has participated in artist residencies that have taken him from the central Australian desert to mountainous New Zealand, history-laden Gallipoli and the extreme icescape of Antarctica and more. In 2010, a monograph, Euan Macleod: The Painter in the Painting, written by Gregory O’Brien and published by Piper Press, was released. Macleod lives and works in Sydney.

Acknowledgements First published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Euan Macleod: High and Low’ held at the Nockart Gallery, March 20 – May 19, 2017 Presented by Nock Art Foundation Director Michael Nock Curator Denise Tsui Catalogue Design Thomas Orbon Catalogue Printed by Magnum Offset Printing Editorial Denise Tsui Photography by Michel Brouet Artist portrait by Andrew Merry Photography of Zhangjiajie Carina Xu Copyright 2017 by Nock Art Foundation. All rights reserved. Copyright of the artwork photographs is held by Michel Brouet. Copyright of artist portrait is held by Andrew Merry. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing by the director of Nock Art Foundation. Many thanks to Mr. Ken Gordon, Australian Deputy Consul-General to Hong Kong and Macau, for officially opening the exhibition. www.china.embassy.gov.au/ 22/F Ho Lee Commercial Building 38 D’Aguilar Street Central Hong Kong www.nockartfoundation.com Unit 16A, Kwai Bo Industrial Building 40 Wong Chuk Hang Road Wong Chuk Hang Hong Kong www.nockartgallery.com Unit 16A, Kwai Bo Industrial Building 40 Wong Chuk Hang Road Wong Chuk Hang Hong Kong www.dinearthk.com