“Video of back fence in a cold morning as sun intensifies. Steam emanating from the fibre board fence.
Using filters to section the video into a dreamlike state until the final frame in golden glow. Sound is the water pouring between tea-cups, tapping on tea cup and glacial waters of Lake St Claire, Tasmania.”
More Voidscape works in progress.
Transparency of image interaction.
After making a short film with soundscape earlier in the year, I am now looking to translate a couple stills into paintings. Documentation of process.
I feel a process is emerging.
The first small study concentrated on blocking in areas with charcole in a loose way, underpainting in complementaries then final layer with body added to the paint.
To translate a work into a larger format, I found the muscle memory of the composition stronger.
“This work is taken from 2023, a day painting at Katrine, outside Toodyay, WA. Behind the farm stay a hill of golden wheat was being harvested over the days, imprinting the landscape with lines. A November sun blurred the vision by day but at dusk the mauves combined with a softer yellow. I wanted to work in a freer fashion after again working with stencils on the project before. This work focused on colour, line and texture as I tried a new paint thickener.
As summer melts into autumn, I am back in the studio.
Last summer I spent many hours in the shade of a cape lilac tree watching a harvester mark a field while staying at Katrine, near Toodyay. As the shadows lengthened in the golden hour, I watched as the harvester lines and hillside changed into a painting in my mind.
In this first study, charcoal defined the composition before underpainting in purple and gold. Juicier paint applied for final layer.
Study is a very small work which will be translated into a larger canvas with more space for the eye to get lost in.
Through developing a project from begining to end, the ASHS students decided to record the sound bytes of their school lives. Setting them loose with a letter giving permission to use their phones to record, they scattered and returned to me with sounds I would never have though of!
A school clock ticking, the canteen microwave, drinking out of the water fountain and pumping up the balls in phys ed. They also recorded interviews with their peers from a set of questions developed by the students for both present and past students.
I got to edit the sound bytes into a whole and pair with the archive images.
Truely it was so much fun working with their ideas….. check it out!
Around the third contact class with the particpating Albany Senior High School students of the Cretaive Pathways Project, we possed a couple of really big questions to the group What project? What do we need to consider?
Explaining that the resources we have and the time available to deliver of the project are major challenges, we asked for the students to think creatively about the content of their final exhibition.
This image from the exhibition currently on show at the Vancouver Arts Centre, is a great example. The group identified that a loud ticking clock was important to the “My Room” section. We discussed finding the right clock which had a loud enough tick tock, we thought through the logistics of adding a speaker with a recording of a clock or how we could add a microphone to the clock to amplify the sound in the space. All were difficult to achieve with the limited resources and time.
This is the elegant and effective solution, which is the students own work.
When the young students ask what slang words the past students of ASHS used, I went straight to the Alumni Facebook group and did they deliver!
The confused faces about the word “Munted”
Since July I have been meeting with a bunch of Albany Senior High School students to mentor them through a creative process. What a blast!
In the recognitation that the Arts when added to STEM (science, techology, enginerring and maths) educational subjects, expands understanding through creativity, the students have directed the development of the project from conception through to the resulting exhibition.
We had our moments of quiet and moments of inspiring interaction. In the end they really pushed through and came up with very insightful responses and collaborated to elevate ideas.
Change, a simple word.
Hidden within is the excitement, fear and growth that make up a lived experience of school. The participating students of this project, a collaboration between the Vancouver Arts Centre and Albany Senior High School, through mentorship, identified coping with change as a marker for good mental health.
The students set out to know the challenges and opportunities of the students that have attended Albany Senior High School over its long history. And to talk about their generation’s experiences.
“Oh my Days” is the resulting exhibition.
Nat Rad Artist + Artsworker 