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DUO MAGAZINE IS PROUD TO PARTNER WITH PERC TUCKER REGIONAL GALLERY AND SHANE FITZGERALD, MANAGER GALLERY SERVICES, TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL, IN A SERIES THAT DISCUSSES CURRENT TRENDS, MUSINGS AND INSIGHTS INTO CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS.
ARTICULATE SUE SMITH FOUND INSPIRATION for her upcoming major exhibition Thirty-Six Views of Castle Hill whilst living in Townsville, explaining that she “enjoyed the way Castle Hill kept popping up as I was moving around the city in my daily routines.” Hailing from Brisbane, Smith has travelled extensively, also calling the Capricorn Coast, London, and (currently) Rockhampton home at various points in her life. While her stay in Townsville – at which time she worked as the Curator at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery – was relatively short, the city left an indelible mark on her, as evidenced by this most recent body of works. The artist’s desire to depict so many views of our iconic landmark was spurred by the 18th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and his famous woodblock prints of Mount Fuji. Smith explains, “The fact that Hokusai’s intention was to depict his mountain from many different perspectives was interesting to me: his project suggests that in order to understand something (a place, or a people) you need to look at it from as many different angles as possible. This idea, in contrast to the notion that there is only one way of knowing something, became evident to me as I progressed with the series.” While each work is punctuated by a representation of Castle Hill, unified by this singular central motif, Thirty-Six Views of Castle Hill is not simply a traditional landscape exhibition. Smith has not only provided viewers with thirty-six resolved glimpses of a landmark; but also with thirtysix insights into our city, its history and contemporary socio-political landscape; and more impressively, thirty-six contemplations of universal themes such as the turbulent landscape of the human condition, explored in an unchained fashion through “a paralleluniverse Townsville”. Smith explains that her broad conceptual points of inspiration are borne out of her personal experiences, “in general, my work grows out of my small town, country and big city experiences and is concerned with time, attentiveness, the sea, the wind and birds, people, emotions, Eastern and Western culture, politics and social criticism.”
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A FRESH TAKE ON A MUCH-LOVED ICON
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The varied body of works presented by Smith in Thirty-Six Views of Castle Hill underline her “affinity with surrealist and magical realist art”, and also her interest in “the tension between representation and abstraction.” The paintings sit somewhere between the clinical explorations of the urban landscape produced by the late Jeffrey Smart, and more playful, hyper-real surrealist works, such as the Pure series of noted Australian contemporary artist Matthew Quick. Smith states, “my own work is planned and anchored in the everyday, but it does contain elements that are unusual and inexplicable. For me, these strange elements seem to halt the viewer and not only suggest an experience but prompt it, inviting him or her to step into the place of imagining. In order to express my awareness of this world and worlds beyond adequately but in terms relevant to the broader human condition, I often marry images from photographs with memories and imaginings, as well as with ideas from art, politics, films, poetry, conversations and music.”
Thirty-Six Views of Castle Hill appeals on many levels – immediately evident is the exhibition’s charming celebration of our region and its natural beauty. However, Smith’s works are also extremely successful in their ambition to ‘halt’ the viewer, and engage them in simultaneously humorous and serious conversations. Thirty-Six Views of Castle Hill is on display at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery from 19 December 2014 – 15 February 2015. Please note the Gallery will be closed for the Christmas/New Year period from 23 December 2014 – 4 January 2015 inclusive.
01 Zen tide, Pallarenda Beach 2013, (diptych) Sue Smith 02 Dreaming of Hokusai 2013-14, Sue Smith 03 Death of the Saint – the lamentation 2014, Sue Smith
DUO MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 duomagazine.com.au 109