Bathe In Bright

This exhibition of 26 vivid, collaged, large ink drawings on paper will be showing at the Macleay Valley Community Art Gallery, Gladstone, November 14 to 24th.

The first room shares a dreamed utopia of the ethereal, other-worldly tranquility that I experienced in the South Pacific islands of Tahiti - a place synonymous with Paradise on Earth. I attempt to evoke the clean light, a gentle telepathic silence, the drifting fragrance of flowers, in a vast and isolated blueness of sky, lagoon and ocean. The aura of a proud, golden population living at the breast of the Earth, the moon, their Gods, their garden home.

That vision is disrupted by the persistent memory that the Polynesian Islands were forced to host 194 Atomic Bomb tests over 30 years until 1996. “Beautiful” French bombs explode in the second room of the gallery as the artist works through the intrusion by this devastation.

Some of the works make use of familiar figures of Gaugin. A descriptive passage from R L Stevenson’s account of his 1985 journey through the South Pacific, “In The South Seas” was cut up and randomly rearranged, the words and phrases used as a process prompt tool.

The title of this exhibition refers to the first “instruction” that I conjure from the rearrangement. “Bath in bright” suggests that each sheet of paper be washed with the brightest hue - yellow. “Colourless lasses” suggests chameleon type bodies. I associate “the blue of the clove” with mushroom clouds.

Repurposing failed backgrounds and recycling paper off cuts became a substantial creative consideration during the making of these artworks and suggests the way forward - to work with that which remains.

Reflecting the recent history of these islands, tropical cocktails and yellow cake will be offered at the opening of the exhibition on Saturday November 16th at 11.30.

The exhibition will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.

All works are for sale, and a portion of profits will be donated to Green Peace.