Last Summer in Italy..., 2010

Helen Martin, Costa di San Giorgio, 2009, oil on canvas, 91x121cm

Helen Martin

Last summer in Italy...

March 6-8, 2010

St George’s Old School Hall

Crn Hobson and Learmonth Sts, Queenscliff

11.30am-4.30pm daily

Sponsored by Brooker Consulting Company Pty Ltd

‘Last summer in Italy...’ presents a series of studies and paintings Helen has completed since returning from a four week stay in Italy last June. Her paintings capture the colour and mood of streetscapes around Florence and Lucca.  This is her first solo exhibition. 

In her painting and print making Helen explores the notion of finding beauty in the ordinary and the mundane.  For her, getting to know a particular place - its colours, its forms, and textures - is like falling in love. Along with finding pleasure in the attractive comes a befriending of the plain, the hard and unappealing. Through the process of layering colour and texture with form, these landscapes are re-revealed, new-found and re-vitalised.

Helen Martin, Via di Neri, 2010, oil on canvas, 90x60cm

UNCOMMON Threads, 2011

2011 Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) Graduate Exhibition

24 November – 8 December

Official opening Thursday 24 November, 6 – 8 pm

Opening address

Emeritus Professor David Williams AM

ANU Research School of Humanities and the Arts

Opening hours 10 am – 5 pm weekdays

The Gordon, Basement Studios, C Building

Cnr Gordon Ave & Fenwick St, Geelong

Helen’s work explores ideas of oneness and landscape.  Using print making and painting processes, in conjunction with her reading of the Song of Songs, she creates works that convey to the viewer a sense of being immersed in landscape. Her work includes oil paintings, an artists book and intaglio prints.

The Song of Songs can be read as a metaphor for the human quest for relationship which is divine.  It is a story that celebrates the fullness that flows from mutual self giving love - one to the other. In the poem landscape is presented as a metaphor for such a relationship.  The lovers are in the landscape and the landscape becomes the lovers: A landscape which is enriching, abundant, fragrant, mysterious, fertile, secluded, and at times raw, fierce or tender.

There are many readings of the poem, as there are many interpretations of landscape. This reading juxtaposes my interpretation of the text with images of indigenous coastal bushland at the entrance to Port Philip. These vistas look to the interior of the Bellarine Peninsula: Views that are often hidden and which need to be sought out to be discovered and enjoyed.

Helen Martin, I am dark, but lovely: reading the land with the Song of Songs, 2011,Artist Book, 26.7 x 38 x 2 cm bound, Edition of 8

http://artingeelong.com/2011/12/06/uncommon-threads-weaves-contemporary-edge/