Queensland Art Gallery is showing the most expansive survey of the Waanyi artist’s work to date; strikingly beautiful pieces that draw the viewer into dark history
The subtle alchemy of Judy Watson: ‘As an artist there’s things you can’t control – that’s what I love’
Visitors’ first encounter with the exhibition is a striking installation just past the gallery’s entrance: a curving red gash, like a smile, painted on a white floor plinth, with a heavy pour of white salt down its centre. At the back, forming a kind of hanging windbreak, are thickets of cut branches. The afternoon before the opening, visitors keep pausing to admire the arrangement.
There’s something of the alchemist in Watson, who came to art via printmaking in the late 1970s, at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in Toowoomba, and studied lithography at University of Tasmania, then Monash University in Gippsland, Victoria. The canvases for which she is perhaps best known owe much of their colour, texture and patterning to chemical reactions – planned and unplanned.
Watson says a return trip to her ancestral Country, Boodjamulla Gorge national park, in 1990 with her family, profoundly shaped her art practice: “My uncle Ken Isaacson showed me: down on the ground there were stone tools scattered; in the sides of the gorges was rock engraving and painting. There are important sites all through there. So I’ve made a lot of work of looking at the ground, or learning from the ground up.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Hawks to unleash ‘the Wizard’ as draftees have instant impact; Goodwin rapt with happy OliverHawthorn will unleash mercurial small forward Nick Watson in their season-opener against Essendon, while Demons star Clayton Oliver has turned his life around “significantly”.
Read more »
Gas CEOs dial up warnings as ‘crunch time’ loomsSenex CEO Ian Davies and APA Group’s Adam Watson will warn of a “desperate” need for new gas supply to help cut emissions, and prevent higher costs for customers.
Read more »
How Connor Watson made it through a 558-day NRL lay-off to score on return for the Sydney RoostersThere were plenty of times during his year and a half away from the NRL that Connor Watson thought his career might be over, but that just made his comeback in the Roosters thumping win over South Sydney all the sweeter.
Read more »
Bradley’s school years were the best of his life. For his twin, James, they were ‘hell’James Elliot-Watson was an obvious candidate for school prefect – his teachers all told him so. Then, one lunchtime, he told a member of staff he was struggling with his sexuality.
Read more »
Bradley’s school years were the best of his life. For his twin, James, they were ‘hell’James Elliot-Watson was an obvious candidate for school prefect – his teachers all told him so. Then, one lunchtime, he told a member of staff he was struggling with his sexuality.
Read more »
Bradley’s school years were the best of his life. For his twin, James, they were ‘hell’James Elliot-Watson was an obvious candidate for school prefect – his teachers all told him so. Then, one lunchtime, he told a member of staff he was struggling with his sexuality.
Read more »