A LITTLE BIT O' CULTURE

For the third year in a row I headed to historic Evandale just out of Launceston, a beautiful little town, not for the annual National Penny Farthing championships which were held a few weeks ago, but for my annual dose of culture at The Glover Prize, an Exhibition of the 43 finalists in this year’s Tasmanian Landscape Prize now valued at $35,000.

Queensland indigenous artist Ian Waldron took out the prize with his entry Walach Dhaarr (Cockle Creek) a striking oil and acrylic on Tas oak depicting (and this is my interpretation) significant aboriginal sites and tribe totems. The public get to vote over the few days of the exhibition, something I really enjoy, and the People’s Choice winner is announced this week. Going with friends it’s fascinating to see how everyone’s perception is different, how what appeals to one does nothing for another.

I have a tendency to be drawn to paintings which evoke a strong emotional response, so I voted for Rock Face with Storm Debris 1 by Nicholas Blowers, a dark and somewhat foreboding representation of a rock face just out of Hobart near where he lives and frequently walks. At 1.2m x 1.2m it was an imposing and dramatic painting, but at $8500 was obviously something never going to adorn any of my walls.

Unfortunately, if I want to hang an original I’m going to have to create it myself. Underneath my bed (so it won’t get damaged, not because I don’t want to use it) is a blank canvas given to me as a gift two Christmases ago so I could have a go at my own visual masterpiece for the bedroom wall. I’m not a complete perfectionist, but if I can’t do something really well I tend not to have a go at all, and testament to my hesitancy at trying something new, the canvas, brushes and paint are all still in their packaging.

I’m about to embark on a painting project of the more mundane kind, namely the hallway, laundry, toilet, bathroom and study. The undercoat, paint and what have you have been sitting in the laundry for several months. I’m not a great self starter when these sort of jobs come along, but I had an idea that while I’m painting the walls I could drag out the canvas and attempt to do something creative with the same colours. If I succeed I might even include the picture somewhere down the track.