| introduction
|
|
She is interested in memory and our relationship to time, and how our perceptions of everyday sights can lead us into different places, different times. She is particularly interested in how the language of paint can be used to lead the viewer into the open possibilities of a painting.
The
following
pages contain a selection of recent and past paintings. Comments and
feedback
from viewers are welcomed. Please contact
the artist for details of availability and prices, or if you would
like to be added to the mailing list for exhibitions.
The
moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
And
when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Therefore
the moon…
Pale
in her anger, washes all the air,
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Eclipse is from the Greek ekleipo, meaning fail to appear. An eclipse does not solely veil or obliterate an object or light-source. The change also reveals objects obscured or gives new emphasis to unnoticed aspects. Certain objects pushed into the background allow other, previously unseen, objects to be revealed; and shapes and shadows mutate as the light source changes.
There are always ambiguous states between one thing changing from what it was and becoming another. And of course paint itself is layered, is changed and changes.
In an eclipse – as in life – even when you stand still, things change.
These works explore what is hidden and what is revealed by the layering of paint, focussing particularly on the transparent and opaque qualities of layers of white paint in an image, below, between and above other layers.
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
2005-2006 – These paintings were inspired by the richness of our immediate environment, which can often be overlooked as we pass by, absorbed in our own interior world. Sometimes small, fleeting things catch our eye and are transformed by our thoughts into momentarily strange and unrecognisable sights.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
2004-2005 – These are from a series inspired by the sights of materials/surfaces/objects that are seen 'underfoot' in areas that the artist visits daily. The material of our everyday environment, whether it is from a landscape or a domestic space, can be full of strangeness and surprise. Things can suddenly be seen as if for the first time and then associations and memories attach themselves and complexity multiplies. The materiality of the paint has been used as a response to these glimpses of the everyday.
If
the purpose is to understand paint, then there is no utility in making
a sharp line between concepts and chemicals: a concept can be a
substance
in the mind just as a chemical is a substance in the world. Substances
occupy the mind as concepts, and concepts occupy the world as
substances.
Thinking in painting is thinking as paint.
James
Elkins
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
||
painting@francesblythe.iinet.net.au
Copyright Notice: The paintings reproduced on this site are copyright and may not be copied or used in any way without written permission from the copyright holder. Please contact Frances Blythe to request permission to use any works.
Photography and site design by the artist.
Last revised: 6 March 2009
