THE SOURCE Our desire to know the motivating influences and hidden meaning behind Art works is insatiable. Thinking that there 'must be more to this than meets the eye' we constantly MICKY ALLAN refer to Art books and reviews to help decipher and understand Art works. But generally these JONAS BALSAITIS explanations and insights, whilst being informative, are secondhand. PETER ELLIS It is rare to see the raw source material such as preliminary drawings and studies, sketches, KEITH LOOBY doodles, photographs, found objects and images, earlier work experiments, notes or souvenirs JAN MURRAY that stimulated and informed the Art work. This material although I crucial to the thought process GEOFF PARR and development of the work has traditionally been seen as private, unresolved and 'messy' STIEG PERSSON and usually never leaves the studio. 'The Source' attempts to redress ROBERT ROONEY this by enabling the Artists to exhibit such material alongside completed works. A written VICKI VARVARESSOS statement by each Artist also accompanies this visual docu­ ment providing further guide­ JENNY WATSON lines and insights into their Art. The exhibition does not attempt to promote one particular style or dogma, but to show a range of ideas and diversity of University of Tasmania approaches to painting. It is a Centre for the Arts Gallery didactic exhibition and a unique opportunity for us to glimpse Hunter Street Hobart behind the scenes. 11 July - 3 August 1986 Elizabeth Gower Curator , . ,,, \ ____...,~ \-- MICKY ALLAN Artist's Statement of other people's paintings from Flaming Pearl over the Bay For internal adventure, for high the bookshop of the Louvre; I of Naples play, I follow the patterns of my lived my life; I remembered my Oil and oil pastel on linen thought and watch their motion past work; I broke away. 130x88.5cm in paint. I chose from all over because I 1985 The four paintings in this show felt all over, able to connect with 2 Seti I are from a body of work called anything, anywhere, should I Oil and oil pastel on linen liuvels Without My Aunt. They choose. 129x96cm were made in 1985 in Paris, Culture was like a force of nature 1985 where I painted for 6 months in to me, and a delight. 3 I Clutch my ideas the Power Institute Studio at the Sometimes I copied other work Oil and oil pastel on linen Cite lnternationale des Arts. A trip exactly, sometimes I imagined 130x88.5cm to Naples during this time was completely; my identity 1985 particularly significant. Out of its remained the same. Baroque exhuberance and 4 Detail of a Renaissance decay I chose complex I drew from the past and from Landscape simplicity. the present, but often felt it was Oil on linen the Future drawing itself into 130x88.5cm During their evolution, I made manifestation through me. 1985 sketches from books in shops Imagination was the combining and of the things I saw around force. me; I took photographs to remind me of detail and tone; I read; I thought; I felt what it was like being where I was, in particular; I collected postcards JONAS BALSAITIS Artist's Statement 5 Unchartered Waters 'The source' is a blank space, Acrylic on canvas The training of the humanist, 130x290cm The training of the Artist, 1985 The building of the Project 6 Night A Painting The idea of two Versions, Acrylic on canvas Changes in plan followed 130x290cm developments. 1985 The source is a blank space that 7 Space Time Structures begins with the training of the 16mm colour film humanist, then the training of the 366m Artist. The building of the Project 48000 frames creates the idea of two Versions, Changes in plan followed by developments. Night A Painting , ' PETER ELLIS Artist's Statement Polaroid photograph Madame Polaroid photograph Fash.bn The painting Inside the Warrior de Pointier by Jean Clouet. Mongrel and Frock, Peter Ellis, oil Woman ... has its beginnings in I have always been fascinated on canvas, 1985. 229 x 198cms. two main events. Firstly, in the by this painting especially the This has the empty dress as woman automatic way of spilling liquid hands which I have used in this image. Also contains self- portrait. paint over the entire surface to painting and variations of them Polaroid photograph Self 'conjur up' an image, without in other works of 1985. Portrait, Peter Ellis, oil and collage pre-conceived ideas. Polaroid photograph The Analyst on wood, 1984 (Private collection, Then the recollection of an old Peter Ellis, oil on canvas, 1985 Canberra). incident dominates the painting. (Collection Robert Holmes a Court). Polaroid photograph Slug, Peter Ellis, drawing on paper, 1986. 122 Once upon-a-time, in a The hands of Clouet are also in x153cms. somewhat romantic mood, with this work. A woman as an empty dress with the sun setting and ice in glasses Polaroid photograph Malic a slug like sucker inside her, she is clinking, I told a woman that she Moulds Marcel Duchamp tampering with another slug. 'had eyes like Limpid Pools'. But The concept of clothes as an due to slight slurring of outer shell, symbolising the vocabulary on my part, she human figure is a re-occurring 8 Inside the Warrior Woman, She thought I said 'You have eyes like interest of mine. The Duchamp is Had Eyes like limpets Bruised Limpets Bruised!' not a direct influence but Oil on 2 wooden panels Sources something I searched out 132x97cm Polaroid of Inside the War.brWoman afterwards. 1984 Two drawings about 20 x 25cm, Polaroid photograph. 9 Confession pen and gouache. Illustration of an American riding Oil on canvas These are sketches of the work­ dress circa 1800's. 122x137cm in-progress. Black Taffeta. 1986 Inside the Warior Woman, She Had Eyes like limpets Bruised 'Z- I -- I ' KEITH LOOBY Artist's Statement The landscapes in this exhibition m Tasmanian Landscape Tasmanian Landscapes are from my present Oil on canvas A landscape image, like any environment, around the Triptych other image of mine, must grow Swansea area on the east coast 153x183cm from an obsession with and in of Tasmania looking over Oyster 153x183cm the local life I lead. Bay to the Freycinet Peninsula. 183x183cm 1986 The only other landscapes I have These paintings are from my new ever done were of Sydney Heads situation where I view the which I viewed every day from constant changes in weather my Manly house and studio. Only along with the ploughing and the initial paintings and some planting of a Botanical Garden etchings succeeded from this 'Kerigan', similar to the constant too singular view. act of painting. Characters of the environment in some cases My Manly Garden done just replant themselves. before I left Sydney to live in Tasmania at the end of 1984, was a painting that ploughed the human figures from my work in the similar way I weeded the Manly garden. For landscape to succeed for me I would have to be living where the landscape overwhelmed other interests. _. , \ _,/. I , ~, ' , ' L.. _,. ' I J 9 - '~ -- , , '- / ~ I ~ . t' \ A " -\ • I Tasmanian Landscape " I I I .. ~ \ " JAN MURRAY Artist's Statement guarded over by winged painted in the latter part of my Both paintings, lm Zwischenraum victories, found adorning the stay in Berlin and in part and Blue Angel, were made church spires and monuments expresses my impending whilst in residence at Kunstlerhaus throughout both East and West departure. I suppose it is about Bethanien, Kreuzberg, Berlin. This is Berlin; for example the famous walking away feeling liberated, particularly relevant because golden angel over Unter Den but on another level it's about the images developed from my Linden (once major Berlin displacement and dislocation - immediate environment- in the avenue). The church is the the act of taking a monument of broader sense I guess one could square that Bethanien faced victory/peace from its pedestal class them 'site specific'. lm had such angels. and bringing it down to earth. Zwischenraum (translated The other form present in the The glowing spires in the means 'in between space1, painting, the inward curve, background are derived from draws reference from the space projects another kind of focus - it the Bethanien Towers, a childrens between East and West Berlin -a is adapted from a Tantric Yoga hospital before the war. They are kind of no-mans land inhabited symbol for fertility. This image, the pedestal for the angel. It is by tank traps and viewable from balanced with the Nike, the relationship between the my studio windows. The Nike communicates the idea of towers and the angel that figure is adapted from the nurturing. lm Zwischenraum talks expresses removal from a given Samathrace Nike in the Louvre about the kinds of contradictions context and creation of a new, in but my source was an Yves Klein I felt while living in Bethanien and this way conveying a truer sense miniature of this, pigmented with the damaged identity of Berlin. of Kreuzberg, the suburb in which Yves Klein blue- I saw this in I lived. In both paintings there is Munchengladback in West Blue Angel also uses the blue an emphasis on what I felt was Germany. The reason for the Nike image and deals again with the earth-bound nature of the interest in the Nike angel statue the use of fragmented images in German culture, and heavy, was that Berlin is ironically an abstract field. This work was ponderous qualities therein. -v v """ "-I(_'I ._, lm Zwischenraum (in between space) 11 Blue Angel Oil on linen 230x240cm 1984 12 lm Zwischenraum (in between space) Oil on linen 185x250cm 1984 rr~ ' c0 1 ' - • I J /J~ GEOFF PARR Artist's Statement children, but children deprived 13 Notes on Colonialism: The Black Notes on Colonialism: The Black by their own culture of the Line of 1830 Une of 1830 is one of a group of condition of innocence.