Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber, Jatinder Singh Durhailay, Robyn Graham, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, Winifred Nicholson, Ben Sanderson, Mana Yamamoto, curated by Joe Lyward
A Painter’s Garden
Earth laughs in Flowers - Ralph Waldo Emerson
A garden enables you to watch nature changing with the seasons. In the winter months, when plants put away their colours, its graphic structures boldly stand out. The sun is low and the branches and stems become rhythmic silhouettes. Branching is more perceptible. Symmetry is exposed, diversity of shapes and colours are captivating. The plants’ efficient architecture and function form part of a larger natural cycle that recurs every year in new permutations. Plants are impressively adaptive. In oppressive heat, flowers bend and leaves seem to lose all fluid, but after a shower the entire garden bounces back, washed clean and recharged with colour. The colours reveal their highest intensity against grey skies. They also do this at dusk, the best moment for working in a summer garden. In the evening air, scents intensify, colours deepen, the bustle of interlocking stems and leaves gradually turn into a hushed game of silhouettes from which all colour is slowly drained. The highest flower heads catch the last rays of sunlight and continue to glow for a while after sundown. The colour red weakens, while the light yellow and white flowers are the last ones to persist as rhythmic stains against a uniformly blue background.A walk through the gardens of art. The frescoes in the ancient Roman Villa of Livia show the idyllic delight of paradise gardens. As a love poem they covered walls in past times. Indian Miniatures show enchanting gardens with refined sense of aesthetics. Bright opaque watercolours decorate a natural world, created by anonymous draughtsmen, who flourished from the Middle Ages under the influence of the Persian Empire. Gardens in Japan are created to experience each season in timeless silent wonders. Spring and autumn are celebrated as moments in time of outstanding beauty. The pleasant process of creating can be felt in the collage works of Matisse. The joy of cutting out natural forms, the energy and vitality of colour inspired by Tifaifai, the vibrant quilts of Tahiti, depicting stylized tropical plants, fruits and animal motifs. His hand painted papers through which the line drawings of the back can be seen, with small pin holes everywhere, in order to shuffle each cut out shapes to achieve the perfect composition. Experimental textile designs by Raoul Dufy were inspired by African and Oriental fabrics. The symmetry of petals transform into floral patterns in bright gouache colours and airy lines. They are a playful and light celebration of life. In flower beds. In the environment of a garden, flowers are the ones who know how to invite a painter to experience colour in its most joyful way. Mixing shadows and light against hues of green, brown or blue, they shine like glowing minerals in deep earth. Previous times resonate in the works of all artists. The sensitive pastel colours of a Winfred Nicholson painting awaken in spring with crocuses in a domestic still life. Patterns, manuscripts, memories of gardens in bloom, all occur in a gentle summer wind blowing along elegant dancing flowers.
