| |
|
|
| |
| Nigel White |
|
| |
|
When I first went to art school intent was the big thing.
So when asked, 30 years later, what is my intent, I am grateful to those who first asked the question.
The concept of visual art as one`s own unique language has enormous appeal. And to then tell a story with that language and have others understand…what a challenge.
I decide to create my own set of marks and gestures. In order to keep it as valid as possible over time I choose the nought and the cross as the marks to start with. They are simple yet full of meaning depending on their context.
Since art making is, by definition, autobiographical, the content should always remain the same, of self.
Art school was a good place to start exploring these same marks in different mediums and dimensions. This led me to study printmaking, painting and sculpture.
The fact that I was starting to develop this primitive language and achieving some response, even reaction, was the trigger to devoting my life to image making and story telling.
And it would be a personal journey, a record of memories and thoughts, good and bad, trying to always create a balance in the image that then causes the viewer to emote, to some how connect and understand. The influences on each work would be determined by what I saw and did. The outcomes mostly abstracted, internal. Some would be more bold and look out, more literal and universal. Always looking for balance and harmony.
The horse was a good way of introducing the concept of man and nature working as one. In fact, who says that it was man that tamed the horse? Maybe it was the other away around.
The racing game was a way of introducing colour, movement and emotion, and it`s what I did. I rode horses fast. Every morning before art school I went to the track and jumped on fine thoroughbreds, galloped around a bit, and then went off to try to craft this new language that was me.
The nought became symbolic of the whole; of nothing and everything; the earth, sun and moon; the race track; and the farm.
The cross became spirituality; games, man and horse, the man in the hat; the horizon, love even. Love in terms of intensity and passion. Noughts and crosses. Hug, hug, kiss, kiss.
Little was I to know that these marks would actually manifest themselves in so many different ways. Different mediums demand different attitudes, speeds, story lines. The prints are very spontaneous, the paintings more measured and problem-solving. Sculpture is never ending. 360 degrees is a long way around.
The inter-relatedness of my life with the land; as grazier, as artist, as partner and father; has become even more apparent through my involvement with a race horse called Newton`s Rings.
Newt has been an amazing horse. He is a big, bay 7 year old gelding by Spectrum and the journey he has taken me on has covered the full emotional spectrum. He has won some and he`s lost some and as a microcosm of life, he`s it. It`s his name that really connects a lot of the things that I am interested in. Newton discovered that when 2 surfaces were pressed together concentric rings of light are emitted from the contact point.
When I work with timber I am always aware of those same concentric rings that start at the heart of the tree. I try to let the rings do the talking. No two pieces tell the same story, try as I might.
And on the farm, it`s those same forces ebbing out from the hub to the farthest boundaries. Fields of energy, circles all around. Droughts and floods, backwards and forwards across my memory. Journeys to other places and journeys back to the same place. Never quite the same.
When I revisit the noughts and crosses that I began with, it`s good to see that they are somehow still there, with more layers, with more to tell. And that is my intent.
|
|
|
|
