Blue
Brett Whiteley @ Brett Whiteley Studio Museum

Saturday 9 Jul 2011

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Arts and Theatre Name:	Blue


Artists:	Brett Whiteley
Date:	Sat, 9 Jul 2011 to Sat, 4 Aug 2012
Venue:	Brett Whiteley Studio Museum 2 Raper Street Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW, 2010
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Under 18s:	Yes
An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery, which will later enable him to express himself in his own language. Henri Matisse Brett Whiteley not only embraced traditional modes of beauty but also notoriously challenged them, and even at times the very aesthetics of painting whose history he respected. This was partly to do with a fear of predictability, but more his belief that his art should seek a contract with the whole spectrum of existence, between light and dark, calm and disruption, life and death. Ultimately these extremities in opposition found greatest resonance for him as an artist through a deep fascination with nature. Such fascination had its genesis in his childhood spent in the Sydney harbour-side suburb of Longueville, and at Boat Harbour on the mid north coast of NSW. Here he would explore of the coves and bays, observing birds and fish, gathering rocks, shells and eggs, establishing an admiration of nature in all its guises. But before this would find full expression he had to fine-tune his understanding of the methodologies of being an artist, and explore the repertoire of subjects that suited his talent. At the age of 19 he was awarded the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship for 1960 by Sir Russell Drysdale, and upstairs we can see the evidence of his brilliant learning curve. Two of the four works submitted for the Scholarship are on display there: Sofala 1958 and Dixon Street 1959. Whiteley was ripe for Europe, his visual appetite voracious, and he studied with consuming focus masterpieces in the museums and churches he had only seen as reproductions. He was ready to conquer London as one of the most luminous young talents of painting; and he did, his work being acquired by the Tate Gallery when he was aged only 21. More than three decades later, after Whiteley’s death, his mother Beryl perpetuated the spirit of her son’s experience by establishing the annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship for emerging painters aged 20 to 30. The finalists for this year will be hung upstairs in early September. Downstairs meanwhile, Whiteley’s story continues with his return to Australia in 1969, and a new embrace of nature here after a turbulent period in New York where he had touched the fringes of insanity. The deep blue of Sydney Harbour, the glistening beaches, and the pleasurable lifestyle triangulated by sand, sea and sky struck a chord. Please produce something beautiful and simple he heard his muse say, and although addiction hovered like a shark ready to pull him under, Whiteley’s sensuous - occasionally humorous - response to the rhythms of Sydney and its inhabitants resulted during the next two decades in the creation of some of his most beloved works. The great ultramarine masterpiece The balcony 2 1975 perhaps says it all. Whiteley’s capacity to suspend us in a symphonic state of ecstasy, evoking Matisse’s belief in an art whereby all pain is subsumed, convinces us - for the moment at least - that happiness is possible through a complete immersion in the senses, and a willingness to follow wherever nature may lead.
Event Type:	Arts and Exhibition
Genres:	Art Exhibition
Web Address:	www.brettwhiteley.org
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