Lakes District Museum & Gallery, Arrowtown 24 July - 30 August 2015
Gallery view
'Referencing the Land', a solo exhibition by Janet de Wagt now on at the Lakes District Museum and Gallery, is a journey through the south of New Zealand in different seasons and lights. In her gouache paintings the sunlight diffuses through clouds, glances off tin, ripples off foliage and sears the rocks to show up the distinctive character of each landscape she paints. This exhibition represents one small work on paper a day done over nine months.
The Gallery has printed old-style road signs to title each groupings of paintings with their location. The journey starts at the left of the gallery and continues around the room, including two dramatic large acrylic paintings.
If you look closely, you'll find a sandfly set into the paint of the large 'The Devil's Own Staircase', evidence of one of the hazards of the plein-air painting practice that Janet is committed to. Imagine the sandflies that would be stuck to a large painting done at Milford Sound! The small works, 190mm x 150mm, are painted with gouache on paper. The gouache is thinner and thus faster to use than acrylics, but with more intensity of colour than watercolours. All of these paintings done plein-air, but I couldn't find any sandflies stuck to the gouache, even on the Monowai series.
The Gallery has printed old-style road signs to title each groupings of paintings with their location. The journey starts at the left of the gallery and continues around the room, including two dramatic large acrylic paintings.
If you look closely, you'll find a sandfly set into the paint of the large 'The Devil's Own Staircase', evidence of one of the hazards of the plein-air painting practice that Janet is committed to. Imagine the sandflies that would be stuck to a large painting done at Milford Sound! The small works, 190mm x 150mm, are painted with gouache on paper. The gouache is thinner and thus faster to use than acrylics, but with more intensity of colour than watercolours. All of these paintings done plein-air, but I couldn't find any sandflies stuck to the gouache, even on the Monowai series.
The 'Wanaka' group
The paintings are rewarding when viewed as individual works, but when you are in the gallery step back and consider each group of landscapes as a whole. Compare them to the other geographic groupings of paintings. You'll see the differences in geology, topography, vegetation and quality of light. Try to figure out what time of year the paintings were done. Some have obvious clues such as blossom, but in many it's the sky and light that will look familiar to a certain season.
In the Te Anau series, pastureland, human constructions and crisp light convey the spirit of the basin. The lake Monowai series, although geographically close to Te Anau, is an offering of steepness and depth, glacier valleys, water and shadow. This is is utterly distinctive from the Crown Range series of gravel screes, herringbone clouds and battered hills just resisting the dry erosion around them.
In the Te Anau series, pastureland, human constructions and crisp light convey the spirit of the basin. The lake Monowai series, although geographically close to Te Anau, is an offering of steepness and depth, glacier valleys, water and shadow. This is is utterly distinctive from the Crown Range series of gravel screes, herringbone clouds and battered hills just resisting the dry erosion around them.
'Hawea Toilet and Rubbish Bin" 190 x 150mm
'Hawea Toilet and Rubbish Bin' is an example of what stuck me as unusual about this exhibition. It is a departure from Janet's usual exuberant expressiveness. This painting has precise, careful lines and shapes. A stark contrast is made between the sharply-defined shaded objects in the foreground and the mountains clouded with atmospheric perspective looming in the background. The glaring sun is just out of the frame, visible rays wafting down to backlight the image.
'Sun Going Down - Te Anau' 190 x 150mm
This high contrast and sharpness of form are seen again in 'Sun Going Down - Te Anau'. In this painting, even though the sunlight is muted, the twilight intensifies the blacks and deep blues. Yellow road signs glow out of the evening. The scene is instantly familiar, the striking beauty often glanced out of a car window but too fleeting to savour. It's a treat to examine it in leisure in this painting.
"Behind Arrowtown in Autumn, NZ" 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 2.5 x 1.5 m
The two large canvasses that hang at the back of the gallery are more typical of Janet's paintings. In "Behind Arrowtown in Autumn" swishing trees, soaring hills and violent colour stir up a cacophony of light and movement. This vivacious expressionism will have been honed by countless hours studying the precise forms and exact colours shown in the small landscape studies.
Anna Claire Thompson
Anna Claire Thompson
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