BY COMBINING macro and micro views of nature in art, artists can create works that evoke a comprehensive sense of wonder.
For instance, a painting might juxtapose a sweeping landscape with detailed foreground elements, or the reverse.
This integration encourages viewers to appreciate both the vastness and the minutiae of the natural world. Anne Morrison is the King Island Gallery’s current artist residence, and two workshops were held over the weekend in the gallery’s studio at Currie Harbour.
The workshops began with an artist talk which included Ms Morrison’s artist expression evolution from the traditional, figurative forms of body, through to her contemporary works which consider the micro world through intimate and delicate studies that reveal patterns, structures, and systems, sometimes abstract and colourful. Her canvases aim to capture wonder.
Participants were encouraged to play and experiment using acrylic paint and simple dab and paint flow techniques to let the created ground, the layer used to support a support for painting, produce the idea, and dictate the story, style, colour and tone.
The play included using different techniques to add, remove and create different backgrounds and textures to reveal different forms and interpretations.
The workshops gave insight into the challenge of mark-making and seeing unexpected results on the canvas and then making connections between the macro and micro worlds.
“I arrived on King Island on Monday, July 8 and was met at the airport by Alison Jacks the Island’s new Community Development Officer, who had hot drinks in hand for a warm welcome and keys to a car to explore the island over the 16 days of my Arts Residency.
The artist’s accommodation is on the coast at Devils Gap; a fabulous inspiring location looking out over the harbour,” Ms Morrison said reflecting on her first week on the island.
“I explored the local area around Currie and to the south of the Island visiting the Cataraqui memorial, Calcified Forest and Seal Rocks sketching along the way.
I set up the studio space at the Currie wharf to run two creative painting workshops with the local community over the weekend.
“I brought a large box of art materials, from my studio in Forth on the North-West Coast of Tasmania, including quality paints, brushes and a variety of primed papers to give workshop participants an insight into some of the painting processes I engage with in the making of my artworks.
“I transformed the King Island studio space with examples of my artworks; original paintings, studies, and reproductions of my larger paintings from my last solo exhibition titled ‘Spin-Drift’ at Despard Gallery in Hobart last year.”
The display includes figurative artworks from exhibitions titled The Crossings and Beneath the Waterline, which were inspired by stories of women in Maritime History.
“The workshops had a wonderful range of ages attending, inspiringly cross-generational. The painting workshops were not about completing finished resolved artworks, but an opportunity to playfully explore and experiment with different ways of applying paint, through an introduction to playful fluid paint processes,” Ms Morrison explained.
“In the first half of the workshop, I gave several demonstrations on different ways of applying and removing paint, exploring glazing techniques, fluid paint processes using gravity, and wet-on-wet techniques to create painterly surfaces that echo elemental patterns and processes found in nature.
“The second half of the workshop I invited participants to paint something from nature they found of interest, colourfully exploring some of the fluid paint processes they had been introduced to.
“Some worked from seaweeds, fossilised coral, different plants, leaves, nests and animal bones and even a few shipwrecks emerged from some of the abstracted fluid paint surfaces.
Over several hours and many lovely conversations, the workshop participants enthusiastically experimented with the processes I introduced, creating some wonderfully diverse outcomes.
“I so enjoyed working alongside such lovely welcoming creative King Islanders on the weekend. A great introduction to the locals.”.
