Tasmanian College of the Arts Tasmanian College of the Arts, Hunter St Higher The Sensation Degree by of Place Research (HDR): TranslatingFine Art the experiential Studio-­‐based examination process 2015-­‐2016 sensation of a place through painting. by Ann Holt MFA (Monash University) Submitted in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Signed statement of originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief it incorporates no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text. Ann Holt i Signed statement of authority of access This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying and communication in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. Ann Holt ii Ann Holt PhD Candidate Abstract The Sensation of Place: Translating the experiential sensation of a place through painting. The aim of this project was to paint the complexities of ‘felt’ moments of experiencing place on Bruny Island, Tasmania, and in doing so, create a visual realisation of the subjective, experiential and conceptual awareness of the artist in relation to the matter and phenomena of the surrounding environment. The investigation was based on the phenomenological model that posits that our understanding of place arises through inter-subjective encounters: the connections, meaning and associations we make in our mind’s eye to what we see. This project explores the formal aesthetic and conceptual translations of atmospherics and movement (light, time, mark) because these aspects most readily provide scope for a painterly inquiry into a subjective and intrinsic experience of place. Through immersive encounters and extensive periods painting on location, the project was driven by the recognition of the intrinsic feeling of place on Bruny Island – the sense of an ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ in the landscape. In this context, the project not only draws on immediate experience but it also brings to bear a sense of past events that ‘live on’ in the ethereal feeling that emanates from the location. Painting on site from direct observation collates the nature of lived experience with the performative and reflective processes involved in making an image. The exegesis investigates how intuitive knowledge and the effects of material artefacts on the senses contribute to an understanding of the nature of experience. Furthermore, the social and cultural constructs that iii might pre-empt these underlying feelings intrinsic to Bruny are examined: specifically, Tasmania’s dark colonial legacy and indigenous culture that is also central to Bruny Island’s history. The methods of a number of artists (in particular David Hockney, Claude Monet, Patrick Grieve and Neridah Stockley) for whom immersion is an essential part of the process in developing paintings that express a deeply-felt connection to place, are identified and explored. Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s painting techniques are also informative in conveying aspects of an experience of place that may be invisible to the eye, yet nonetheless intrinsically felt, and expressed through a painterly language that transcends cultural boundaries. In this way the project proposes that painting has the potential to be an effective agency to transcribe sensations of what is both seen and felt. The original contribution, as encapsulated in the artwork and the exegesis, is a body of work that evidences the layers of complexity that contribute to the experience of place. In this, the project adds to the understanding of human relations to place, specifically in relation to painting and a perception and knowledge of Bruny Island. The research exhibition provides a distinct visual interpretation of the site, which contributes to the evolving field of interpretative Tasmanian landscape painting. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. Mary Scott and Mr. Neil Haddon for their guidance and ongoing encouragement. Thank you to Fiona Trigg for her valuable advice and Sandy Coventry for the layout of the exegesis. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their support and understanding, with special thanks to my mother Joan Holt, my niece Sunday Holt, John Moore and Ellen France. Thank you to Craig Tate for his patience and for being there. This thesis is dedicated to my dear friend Josephine Denne (1923–2016), of Dennes Point Bruny Island – a remarkable woman and kindred spirit. v Contents Statement of originality i Authority of Access ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Part I: Central Argument Introduction 1 Aims 1 Background to the project 2 The problem: central proposition 3 Outline of the exegesis/context 4 Visual Investigations – Methodology 11 Project outcomes and significance to the field 13 Part Two: The context of the project: Chapter One: Experiencing Place on Bruny Island 16 Part one: Bruny Island 17 Immersive experience – Walking 20 Immersion and the Senses 23 vi Part two: The Nature of Experience and Place 25 Observation and the surrounding world 26 Place and feeling 27 Feeling, artefact and memory in the landscape 30 It’s in the air 33 Chapter Two: Place 35 Part one: Tasmania, an island apart 35 The shadow of colonisation 36 The Presence of Things Past 37 Beauty and Sadness in the Landscape 40 The impact of historical precedents and place on Tasmanian artists 42 Tasmania, the natural state 46 Contemporary paintings of place in Tasmania 48 Reflecting on asmaniaT and precedents in contemporary art 51 Part two: The influence of indigenous culture on the experience of place and painting in Australia 52 Historical incentives 52 A Contemporary Cultural Landscape 56 Black and White voices in the painting of place 60 Knowledge and diversity 61 Home and Country 62 An Indigenous perspective 63 The role of painting in Indigenous culture 66 vii The paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye 67 Historical and Political Revisions of Place in Painting 70 Place, Value and Feeling 72 On Bruny Island 72 Roaming on Bruny Island 74 On reflection 77 Chapter Three: Painting Place 79 Visual language: the hand, the eye and the mind 80 The connection to place: painting in and around home 84 David Hockney 88 Monet 91 Neridah Stockley and Patrick Grieve 93 Memory in Painting Place 98 Layers and time in painting 99 On reflection 103 Chapter Four: Methodology/Studio Practice 105 Part one: 105 First Body of Work 106 Inside and Out 108 Field Trips 109 Evaluating the first body of work 110 Second Body of Work 111 Moment 114 viii Part two: Letting go of form 115 Critical reflection 121 The figure-ground relationship in the painting of place 122 Form and spaciousness 123 Part three: Four Seasons 127 Scaling up 127 Four Seasons 127 Painting in spring 129 Summer 131 Autumn paintings 135 Winter paintings 136 Winter snow 138 Evaluating the seasonal paintings 140 Late stages of studio research/ongoing work 142 Painting the blue hours 143 Conclusion 148 Painting Light in a Dark World 149 Outcomes of the visual investigation: 149 Part one: Two hundred and thirty-four moments 150 Part Two: Transmutation 152 Part Three: The Blue Hours 153 On reflection 155 Contribution to the field 156 ix List of Illustrations 158 Bibliography 164 Résumé 173 Visual documentation 179 x Introduction Aims The aim of the project is to paint an elucidation of the sensation or felt experience of place on Bruny Island, Tasmania. Our impression of a place is initially formed through the ocular sensing of a visual arena that is continually subject to climatic changes over time. However, if painting is to be more than a picturing of the discrete or distinct features of the locale, it will include something of the artist’s experience of being in that place, and also what they bring of their previous experiences. Our understanding of place comes from inter-subjective encounters: the connections, meaning and associations we make in our mind’s eye to what we see. Associated memories, coloured by our experience of political, cultural, philosophical and scientific knowledge, further shape our perceptions and the relationships we form with specific places. Merleau-Ponty describes this phenomenological approach as viewing the world not as ‘pure being, but the sense which is revealed where the paths of my various experiences intersect’ (1962:20). The premise for this research project is that our understanding of place is not formed through objective, distanced viewing, but rather through being ‘immersed’ within it (physically, emotionally and psychologically). We are, as Martin Heidegger suggests, ‘within and not outside the visual arena’ (cited in Jay, 1994:275). Being immersed in a place is also profoundly sensory. Within the realm of a sensory environment, beyond our visual and physical sensations, what of the place itself? Like people, do places also carry a resonance of past histories that manifest in the atmospherics or feeling of a location? How would these forces resonate in the painting of place? I propose that physical immersion in a location opens up the possibility of an innate sensing or tapping into the feeling of place. 1 Through practice-led research, this project explores in painting, the elements that contribute to the sensation of place, specifically Bruny Island, and how these elements might be translated into paintings that express ‘felt’ moments in time and place. The research will address these conditions through the phenomenological model, in which painting place is foremost a mapping and material registration of the subjective, experiential and conceptual awareness of the artist in relation to the matter and phenomena of the world around them. The objective is to develop a visual language that captures what is both seen and unseen; a painterly and atmospheric rendition of time, place, light, colour and sensation, through the use of dexterous, spontaneous brush marks that respond to the moment or series of moments.