Exhibitions
Celia Gullett
23 October - 10 November 2007
Celia Gullett
New works 2007
23 October - 10 November 2007
Please note: Works may no longer be available as shown and prices may be subject to change to reflect current market value. Please contact the gallery for assistance. Thank you
NEW PAINTINGS 2007
“I use colour as a means of expressing my emotion and not as a transcription of nature.”
Henri Matisse, The Path of Colour, 1947
Celia Gullett first visited India when she was eight. Forty years later, equipped with the knowledge and perception of a mature painter she went back. Her first substantial trip outside Australia since 1992, Gullett returned to her studio overwhelmed and inspired by the rich tapestry of India’s visual environment and artistic heritage. Miniature painting, architectural ornament, the high chroma colours of fabrics, and the vibrancy of market stalls seeped through her skin.
Gullett is a consummate technician, gradually building up the surface of her pictures through methodical layering of glazing and scumbling. These new paintings have a horizontal component which provides a solid foundation that is overlaid by vertical brushstrokes. The intent of the horizontal substructure is to lend a continuous and infinite vibration, while the vertical brushstrokes hold onto a fragment of a grid. These vertical, meditative marks are complicit in this modernist framework. Colour, emotive rather than specific or descriptive, is the third essential component in all of Gullett’s paintings.
Influenced by Ben Nicholson’s affection for the border, and the use of margins in Indian miniatures, Gullett has paid particular attention to the perimeters of the paintings. These borders, similar to a frame, support the space created by the horizontal, vertical matrix. With the methodology established, the artist is free to connect with what really matters: the intimate struggle of the paint itself. In earlier work, mark making is polished almost reverent, this time however, gesture is accentuated and therefore more apparent.
Pushkar is a city in Rajasthan, which swells to 150,000 during the yearly camel sale and holy tribute to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Howard Hodgkin who frequently visits India and is influenced by the Indian aesthetic, believes Indian painting is, “a whole world in which everything is precise and visible yet somewhere else”. With this in mind, Gullett’s painting Pushkar exhibits a field of soft yellow, broken by lines of washed blue, lemon yellow and green, echoing the row houses of the market streets. There is a feeling of floating, dispersed light, of dust. In her painting lexicon, colour has always been pivotal. Colour is a tool for memory, recall, and response. This allows Celia to articulate the “somewhere else” Hodgkin refers to .
Jaisalmer, perhaps the most visually complex of all the paintings, is inspired by the chromatic complexity of Indian miniature painting. The lime green rectangle floats above nuanced layers of rusty reds, encased in a structurally complex crimson border - a stylistic technique reminiscent of miniatures. Gullett interprets colour. This is a painterly language of evocation, not nostalgia.
While the paintings are named after places Celia visited, they are pictures about who she is and the India that resides within her. It is a pleasure to place our selves in front of these subtle, vibrant, and complex works. Non-objective painting, perhaps more than any other visual art form, allows an artist to combine perception, sensation and invitation to seduce the viewer. Gullett has skilfully provided all of these, so that we may savour our own journey.
Gordon Waters, September, 2007
“I use colour as a means of expressing my emotion and not as a transcription of nature.”
Henri Matisse, The Path of Colour, 1947
Celia Gullett first visited India when she was eight. Forty years later, equipped with the knowledge and perception of a mature painter she went back. Her first substantial trip outside Australia since 1992, Gullett returned to her studio overwhelmed and inspired by the rich tapestry of India’s visual environment and artistic heritage. Miniature painting, architectural ornament, the high chroma colours of fabrics, and the vibrancy of market stalls seeped through her skin.
Gullett is a consummate technician, gradually building up the surface of her pictures through methodical layering of glazing and scumbling. These new paintings have a horizontal component which provides a solid foundation that is overlaid by vertical brushstrokes. The intent of the horizontal substructure is to lend a continuous and infinite vibration, while the vertical brushstrokes hold onto a fragment of a grid. These vertical, meditative marks are complicit in this modernist framework. Colour, emotive rather than specific or descriptive, is the third essential component in all of Gullett’s paintings.
Influenced by Ben Nicholson’s affection for the border, and the use of margins in Indian miniatures, Gullett has paid particular attention to the perimeters of the paintings. These borders, similar to a frame, support the space created by the horizontal, vertical matrix. With the methodology established, the artist is free to connect with what really matters: the intimate struggle of the paint itself. In earlier work, mark making is polished almost reverent, this time however, gesture is accentuated and therefore more apparent.
Pushkar is a city in Rajasthan, which swells to 150,000 during the yearly camel sale and holy tribute to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Howard Hodgkin who frequently visits India and is influenced by the Indian aesthetic, believes Indian painting is, “a whole world in which everything is precise and visible yet somewhere else”. With this in mind, Gullett’s painting Pushkar exhibits a field of soft yellow, broken by lines of washed blue, lemon yellow and green, echoing the row houses of the market streets. There is a feeling of floating, dispersed light, of dust. In her painting lexicon, colour has always been pivotal. Colour is a tool for memory, recall, and response. This allows Celia to articulate the “somewhere else” Hodgkin refers to .
Jaisalmer, perhaps the most visually complex of all the paintings, is inspired by the chromatic complexity of Indian miniature painting. The lime green rectangle floats above nuanced layers of rusty reds, encased in a structurally complex crimson border - a stylistic technique reminiscent of miniatures. Gullett interprets colour. This is a painterly language of evocation, not nostalgia.
While the paintings are named after places Celia visited, they are pictures about who she is and the India that resides within her. It is a pleasure to place our selves in front of these subtle, vibrant, and complex works. Non-objective painting, perhaps more than any other visual art form, allows an artist to combine perception, sensation and invitation to seduce the viewer. Gullett has skilfully provided all of these, so that we may savour our own journey.
Gordon Waters, September, 2007