The Australian National University
National Institute of the Arts
School of Art
Visual Arts Graduate Program
\
MASTER OF VISUAL ARTS
Claudia Chaseling (nee. Poetzsch)
REPORT
PRESENTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE
MASTER OF VISUAL ARTS
MASTERS OF ART (VISUAL ART)
CANDIDATE REPORT 2002 PAINTING
between the lines
CLAUDIA Chaseling 3 FEDERAL AVENUE
Abstract
A series of paintings using layers of coloured line to investigate a direct experience of the Australian landscape: its essential rhythms, structures and colours, fields of
Introduction
1. First Influences and Experience of Australia The exchange
Perspective in painting and the aura of a picture Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance Australia 1999
2. Landscape and Environment
3. About Journeys and Tourism
4. Painting Technique, New Work
5. Aboriginal Artists and Bark Paintings
6. Lines and Fragments
7. Material
8. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
I want to thank
Scott Chaseling who gave me with his love the energy to return to Australia and who is on my side finding my way around in the foreign country.
The Canberra School of Art which welcomed me a second time, especially the painting staff: Bob Boynes, Ruth Waller, Deborah Singleton, Peter Mahloney who a great to work with and great painters, David Williams who enabled me to stay longer when I came in 1999, Gordon Bull and Nigel Lendon.
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), who made this stay in Australia and the MVA studies possible for me through the scholarship.
The CSA Gallery who let me finalise my studies with this amazing gallery space. Goanna Print for printing the invitation to my final exhibition in the CSA Gallery. Sue Jenkins who guided me through the storeroom of the National Gallery of Australia and shared knowledge about Bark Paintings.
Pablo and Simon, the technical assistants in the Painting department
My previous teachers, the artists: Dieter Sonntag, Kassab-Batchi Marwan, Herman Nitsch, Burkhard Held.
My parents, Irmgard and Klaus Poetzsch for their love and assistance throughout my life.
Introduction
This report will be about the way I paint, the history of my work and the influence Australia has on my painting and myself.
My first contact with Australia had such an impact on my world view that I had to return as soon as I could. This was my initial exchange in 1999 from the Visual Arts Academy in Berlin (HdK) to the Canberra School of A r t
I had placed myself at distance from the art traditions in Germany, indeed all of Europe, and the aim of my return was to sort out how to fuse such different experiences and ways of painting and looking, to create a new way of thinking. I left my birth place Munich in 1993 and lived in Vienna and Berlin, the last 7 years in Berlin. Since I came the first time to Australia in February 1999 I lived between Berlin and Canberra. In this time some major changes happened in my work and my life and are still happening.
In 1999 the atmosphere in Canberra brought me closer to realising the theme of my painting. I reflected on my life in Berlin, experienced Aboriginal Art the first time, focused on my inner view of things and my environment and my belief in seeing the world as a moving multi layered space, in which human understanding is relative, became stronger. So I could create a body of work, strongly influenced by the Australian landscape.(image 1)
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2 works out of 100 sponges, with gaps, 2000 Berlin, 150/200cm, acrylic, oil silicon on sponges
River 2000 Canberra 330/440cm acrylic, pigments, oil on paper and wood
Works of my Masters Graduation Berlin July 2000
It made sense to me to exhibit w o r k with the image of a horizon in a city like Berlin,
where buildings crop the view and the German sky hangs low over the earth. But I
also knew that I do not aim to be a horizon or landscape painter. I like the energy of
the works I made in 1999 in C a n b e r r a but I had to sort out what I do with the
image. Specially now, so f a r from the Australian seascape. I got heaps of criticism of
my w o r k because it did not make sense to anyone.
M a n y people looked at my work analytical instead of absorbing its energy. In this
logical/analytical way of reading paintings some could not find a reason for my large
works.
I got a studio very quickly after finishing art school, too quick to think about just
returning to Australia and I also got a very good job with the Berlin Painter F r a n z
Ackermann.(image3) I worked as an assistant in his studio, did all sorts of
preparation work and worked on his paintings under his instruction. It was the best
job I ever had.
-I enjoyed painting without thinking about the complicated concept of the work. I
was fully set up again in Berlin a f t e r a couple of month and started my life after art
school.
Before I left C a n b e r r a I had applied and was accepted for MVA studies at the
C a n b e r r a School of A r t in painting. I tried to find ways of returning to Australia
but without success, until 1 applied and won the DAAD scholarship (German
Academic Exchange Service), one of the biggest scholarships in Germany for
studying overseas and so I returned to Australia.
In Berlin I had focused on t h e structure of my w o r k . The paintings look more
controlled in the gesture and the image became more abstracted in lines.
Just before I left Berlin I came to the decision to paint only with lines.(image4)
In Australia in J u n e 2001 I started looking at the structure and the ripples in the
water. I observed the image to find the necessary essence of it. I only wanted to use
for my w o r k what is essential to painting my idea.(image5)
O n e of the m a j o r changes in the following year, 2001/2002 is my use of colour. I used
to use a lot of blue in my work and had slipped into a habit. I tried to leave the
Looking too much to the appearance in the environment seemed to become a handicap for my use of colour.
I avoided blue for some months and studied other colours which seem to me as a clearer expression of my inner intentions as a painter.
Then I missed literal elements in my pictures.
My theme is not painting about colour, colour is my main tool when I paint. Painting about colour can be enough and yet, at the same time I have realised that there are many more issues that I needed to discuss through my actions as a painter that could not be said through the reliance purely on colour. My work needs a narrative element.
Upon returning to Australia, I realised it was very different to what I expected. Personally I felt out of balance in the beginning and realised the difference between going travelling and slowly moving to an other continent. It brings questions up about my identity.
In my work I started into a different direction.
Instead of seeing again and repeating again similar paintings I made in the past, thereby manifesting my view from 2 years ago, I took in a different perspective and realised more and more about the country, the culture and also myself in many ways. So, in a way, it was a return to the new.
Along with discussions on techniques, colour and form I will raise points on interpreting the landscape, which forms the basis of my present work. Related to this are the areas of'travel', spiritual, educational and exploitation (tourism).
2002 my studio with two works in progress, Canberra School of Art
Ripples (02) 2001 Berlin
70/70cm, eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
... dock of the bay 1998 Berlin
110/110cm, eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
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1. First influences and experience of Australia The exchange
My first stay in Canberra, Australia was in 1999, for 14 months. I came from Berlin, Germany as an exchange student These two places appeared to be very different, though I found similar influences on my being and on my work as both counties have extreme elements, each country in its own form.(image6,7)
In Berlin I found myself confronted with the number of people living in the city. Always a huge, anonymous crowd of people playing out their lives around you, and each individual in his/her own little universe. All kinds living together in a
multifaceted environment. High pressure and tension comes from the politics of the crowded country, full of roads and de-natured landscape.
When I left Berlin in 1999 there were about 3000 registered artists. On one hand this number speaks for the popularity of this vocation and how arts becomes a part of the economy. On the other hand it seems that art is not a result of the life in a certain time and place, but more a system, which feeds itself through its theory, history and the economy around it.
Aragunnu 2000 Berlin 160/205cm, acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas
River 1997 Salzburg/ Austria, 240/160cm water based colour on paper
Seals Rock National Park, New South Wales
Canberra 1999/2000
the experience of wilderness and especially the huge dimension of the coastline around Australia.
When I started my life as a painter my first influence were painters like Georg Baselitz, Christa Naeher, Per Kirkeby and Bernd Koberling. -Figurations in landscapes and landscape painting with strong abstractions. Herrman Nitsch taught me how to imprint my painting with my physical energy in a pure way. Technically he was my main teacher. The book Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, planted the first seed for my latest theme, after a period of being into more conceptual works, reading about Marcel Duchamp, Pavel Florenskij....
Perspective in painting and the aura of a picture
Pavel Florenskij was a priest, theologian, mathematician, physician and studied icon paintings. He lived around 1900 in Russia. When Vladimir Lenin became a dictator in 1917 Florenskij was taken into a number of prisons and eventually murdered in 1937 by the KGB, as a result of his interest in science, arts and religion. I was fascinated by his book The Iconostasis, written in 1922. In which he describes icons as "alive pictures" which do not function as illusions, more as windows to a spiritual world, which is created through the belief, competence and ability of the artist. Florenskij writes about his doubts on the development of modern painting since the renaissance: The themes became worldly, the artists talk in their works more about humans, themselves and every day life themes. I was fascinated by the idea " the painting as a window" to a spiritual world rather than the painting as an illustration or documentation of reality. Florenskij says that a painter can create a painting with an aura. The aura is what makes the painting alive and different from an
Formally he explains that ignoring a logical perspective in the painting is a way to arrive at a painting with an aura. This process could be by simply reversing perspective. Perspective in painting is a result of logical understanding. Florenskij does not see it as a progressive discovery in art to use perspective, he sees it as a method to represent the world. Using perspective in painting disturbs and irritates the essence of what the painting is about. We see perspective in the world and that eliminates the reason to paint it. Reversed perspective on the other hand does not make the observer relate in his/her mind to a natural situation, it rather makes the image strange and the observer absorbs the image in an abstract way.-To distort or affect reality requires a more open mind from the viewer, leading to contemplation and there by giving more energy to the composition.
Florenskij explains how pleats in the robes in Icon paintings, creating a very reduced and clear form of colour describe the form of bodies in the paintings. Light in the painting is symbolised with gold leaf. That means that the artist tries to create light which is as intense as possible because gold is a luminous substance in itself. Florenskij said, that since the renaissance, artists have not clarified the essential idea or the image in their work. The themes of the paintings became more profane and wordily. The artworks are reflections of common life on earth. Florenskijs opinion is that the expectations of the artists is not high enough, the themes not spiritual enough. The art works hardly ever acquire an aura and stay as illustrations or copies. The artists become more self-centered leading to a point where the ideas are not complex but simple and on the surface. When the idea which makes the painting necessary is missing it is unable to become a window to another space.
It seemed to me like an artwork only makes sense and a reason to exist to Florenskij if it is an absolutely perfect balance between form and spirit.
the idea was not dependent on the material when using goldieaf. But I can not agree with Florenskij's judgement about painting since the Renaissance and I found his demands of an artist as paralysing, not productive and against discovering and researching Zeitgeist. I can not work like artists other epochs and my material, themes and ideas are influenced by the time 1 live in. Artists paint their beliefs and over time our beliefs became more diverse and ambiguous. Post-Medieval times allowed for relaxation of the dogma and ignorance imposed by the church. Because of spiritual freedom of the western culture it is the responsibility of the individual to find values.
I think about the speed of life in the western society, and that the most common belief has become that of economics. The fashion of art makes it hard to create paintings, which are more than wallpaper or just fodder for art critics.
Enzo Carli wrote about Caspar David Friedrich that he is an artist who followed the ideals of medieval saint and mystic by also involved his private life in the themes of his work. In his painting "white cliffs of Ruegen" from 1818 his theme is the infinite space. How he works with light and colour creates a spiritual, superficial
atmosphere and is absolute in its craft. But this painting is also about the honeymoon he spent there.(image8)
In the following years I found more paintings which restored my belief in a more contemporary arena. I found Florenskij's "window quality" of icon paintings in such works as "The piano lesson''{1916) by Henri Matisse, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Without any logic in the image it creates an aura. The experience of this painting led my doubts about modern painting to disappear. Also works by artists of the Bay Area Group, San Francisco 1950-70's, who seemed to be influenced by Matisse: Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Joan Brown etc ...and the simple and honest themes of their work lead me in a new direction.(image9)
way their work developed over years and made my mind free again to discover my
work through making. The fact I was interested in is that the style of these painters
is placed in a figurative orientated but abstract way of painting and understanding
of form. The colours Matisse creates in his works still left a sound in my memory,
which I could never feel from a reproduction. Absorbing these paintings made all
my doubts I had about painting unnecessary. Seeing this halfway abstract painting
in Diebenkorns early works made me realise that I can just paint like I want.
In Australia I found contemporary Icon paintings. I saw for the first time paintings
of Aboriginal Artists and this experience had the same impact on me then when I
saw the first icon paintings.
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
Robert Pirsig's book, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, reflects western
culture and changed the standard cultural attitudes of many. Pirsig talks about
insanity as something other than a sickness and is finding new values. He also talks
about "success" and its different forms.
A schoolteacher is on a motorbike tour with his son. Through the trip he reflects on
his life, the past and the present events that are constantly changing. He gives a lot
of attention to the simple things in his life, to all singular actions. Whilst on this trip
he starts remembering his past, what was lost during his time in a mental asylum.
I ~
At the lake 1998 Berlin 70/70cm eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
Onto the street (02) 1998 140/140cm eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
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Trainriding 1998 Berlin 140/140cm eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
Onto the street (01) 1998 140/140cm eggtempera, pigments, wax, oil on canvas
living beings and environment/ nature are disturbed or impossible. W e are
conditioned to a point where our intuitive feeling for the completeness in life is lost.
I began seeing my own perception of life and things as ambiguous and flexible,
always moving, changing and becoming more complex. I became interested in the
perceptions of other cultures and more sensitive to other ways of seeing.
In my paintings I aimed at describing this relative view of individuals. I started
painting different views of figures, landscapes and interiors. With all layers
transparent enough so that each image is visible through the other- so that from one
point more views can be seen, (see work description )
I want to symbolise the multifaceted nature of the environment through reflecting
and translucent spaces on the picture plane. The elements and layers of spaces in my
paintings exist synonymously.
Australia 1999
Australia is a very rich country in terms of nature, the wilderness and the distance in the landscape. In July 1999 I made a trip to several different communities in the
Northern Territory and Western Australia and I visited the art centres of the
Indigenous communities. M y wish to do this journey came from my first contact
with Aboriginal Bark paintings. Many of the Bark paintings seem to me like contemporary Icon paintings and my impression of the Aboriginal culture is like a
painting culture. It was at these places that I found the most amazing pieces of
contemporary painting and it was there that I noticed the people's ability to live in
harmony with their surrounds (landscape/nature). The paintings reflected their history from 20000 years ago to the present.
I am mainly interested in the bark paintings from North-East Arnhem-Land in the
In 1999 I had a conversation with the artist Dhuwarrwarr Marika. She said that she uses only the colours of her country, red and yellow ochre, black and white, because she knows what she needs to create her painting- that reminded me to the use of gold leaf in the icon paintings.
She explained to me some elements in the painting and what they represented. Using cross hatch brush work out of four different colours she is able to create images that reflect the subject painted. The aura of most of the bark paintings I saw was created out of an extremely abstracted form and use of colour.
The theme of many of the bark paintings is spiritual referring to the creation story, but also matters of every day life. The image of plants, animals, environment/ nature, humans and spirits are used in the paintings.
Also like in icon paintings many of the North-East Arnhem- Land artists work without the illusion of a space and perspective. Form and space is reduced to flat shapes and lines. The symbolic figuration is clear and reduced, but the surface of the painting seems to be a deep luminous space. The painting gives off an aura. This way of painting has an incredible long tradition and is still being produced today. The perception of the environment and the translation into a painting is very different to my Western way of seeing. My short visit, in 1999, opened up my mind and gave me an idea how narrow my way of seeing was. Realisation allowed me to create a new language in my paintings.
Around (pink) 2001 80/80 cm, acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas
Flow (green) 2001 160/80 cm with 2 cm gap
acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas
u n d e r the water and the moving watermass. Building up a conglomerate of images
to depict the relativity of our perception.(imagell)
T h e B a r k paintings in the cross-hatching style of Aboriginal Artists show a very
specific, deep, luminous space. Not a regular space, more a reflecting space, which
plays with the close and the f a r and creates a woven, moving planer surface.
The patterns of t h e cross-hatching style seem to be a design but they can also refer
to patterns in nature.
For years I have been fascinated by the way colour creates space, how elements I see
in my surroundings can a p p e a r close and be f a r away and vice versa. My aim is a
maximum of colour depth and the tension between close and f a r elements in my
painting. My understanding of depth and space changed in Australia and that led to
the first changes in my work.
I kept on working with blue colour spaces and also tried to give a sense of deep
space in large size works.
I worked on panels, which when hung together build a large size, up to
3.30m/4.40m, able to give an idea of the dominance and hugeness of the Australian
environment. When hung in their structured groupings I intentionally leave a gap
between each canvas. These gaps between the panels stand for what we do not know
something we can not see. Like suddenly negative spaces in a regular landscape
image.
For smaller work I used sponges as a painting support. It is a light, robust material
and its surface worked well, highlighting the texture of the paint through the
consistency and s t r u c t u r e of the foam. The height of the sponge also works as a
f r a m e for the small paintings, projecting the image off the wall and towards the
viewer. Mixing my mediums to f r a c t u r e the image, I used oil colour, acrylics and
silicon as paint. I found that due to working in different countries and travelling
around the outback I started to place these sponge works in suitcases. These
suitcases became t h e exhibition room for the smaller paintings and also allowed me
form their impressions of my travels abroad, and that of the Australian environment through seeing my work presented this way.(imagel2)
The motivation for my current work arises from sis different sources: 2. Landscape and Environment
3. About Journeys and Tourism 4. Painting Techniques, New Work 5. Aboriginal Artists and Bark Paintings 6. Lines and Fragments
7. Material
2. Landscape and Environment
I use many motifs in my work; the picture is always about what's happening around me and where I am presently positioned.
The motifs come from images like land/seascapes, cityscapes, humans, animals, boats, planes etc. Something of my surroundings that attracts my attention and fits with the theme I am working with at the time. I use a sketch book like a written diary to collect images and to reflect my environment.
In Australia I started to respond to nature.
traditions become doubtable. Wilderness and untouched nature become all the more important and precious.
"Nature has a spiritual beauty and is worth attention. It should be contemplated rather with the souls than with the body's eye. The reality behind things matters more than their physical aspect..." (Hugh of Saint Victor, Landscape in Art, 3000 BC- today, page 27)
In another book about Aboriginal art and culture. Spirit in the Land Judith Ryan, writes:
"...the cosmic lies within the concrete. The ancestral world is pictured directly in the forms of the natural world... a dialog between the visible and the invisible...which are yoked together in a magical transformation of the seen world..."(page 76)
For me these words best describe the words "reality" or "real". I'm looking for something solid and stable in the mind or in the environment. But reality to me means now accepting that everything is moving and changing and that human understanding is limited. Belief is not a religion with its rules any more. Belief is easy to lose because in our culture it does not have a "certain form" any more unlike the gods of the pagans or the holy books of the Christians, the Muslims and the Hindus.
An example is what a friend, Natali, said recently about Icon paintings:
That the image on the Icons is the reality of the artist, painted in a way that other people can feel this world. That means, that the angels etc. existed in that time.
"Other people say that if you have nothing, neither an ideology, or a religion,
landscape can be seen as something that everyone shares. Then the question
comes up about the mystical relation." ( Mark Wallinger)
Finding an alternative to the materialist world view is dependent on each individual
and can take all sorts of forms and sources of inspiration. People can use spirituality
in the same kind of way that they consume things, to be entertained, to deal with
their every day life or to find new ways and to find a certain depth in life. What we
believe in becomes our reality, it is the way we see the world. I understand the value
of religion, as it allows people to fill in the "gaps" through its discourse, because it is
hard to accept the feeling of not knowing. Fear and uncertainty can drain a person
of fulfilment, so it is necessary to look for a means to fill these gaps, usually through
those that are easily accessible. We choose what we want to see in the overflow of
information and we choose what we absorb, dissolve, where we put and aim our
energy. The more we open up our mind the more different ways appear.
Piet Mondrian said, that
" The world falls into fragments if we can use our perception."
In my paintings separation of fields, through their depth or closeness through the
use colour, creates these fragments.
I try to see my way something other than linear. I see the spiritual world as a
three-dimensional universe and humans are points in it. My aim is to keep balance and to
see as much as I can, to absorb it, to understand and to act in the context of what is
happening.
I was incredibly impressed by the vastness of the Australian environment, the roughness and hugeness of its terrain. I felt the deep powers of life in the endless rhythm of the sea and the circle of energies. My first land and seascape paintings were about my first contact with this environment, my awareness of nature. My intention now is to paint land/seascape in dialogue with our time. I paint the circumstances surrounding me and the development of my own life. I try to combine simple illustrations of what I see in front of me, with the painting of an energy and structure in a space. I try to understand the energy I feel or imagine and then transfer it into colour and form. Each painting is kind of a search to come closer to "reality" - an idea of energy and movement in a space. I aim to describe the essence of structure and energy in my environment, physical and mental.
" A landscape in a state of mind"
( Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss essayist, Landscape in art 3000 BC- today, page 9 )
Each painting, at the moment, is only a tiny part of an endlessly expanding view and only a fragment of a growing structure.
I begin my work now in front of the motif, the Australian land/seascape.(iroage]9) I try to absorb every detail, to study the basic rhythm and to find the essence of what I see. I try to get close to my understanding of reality. What makes me do that is the quest I hold. The land/ seascape is the pictorial base for my painting. My aim is not to make work about, or document, a certain place. The scene could be anywhere and I use what I see as a tool to build up a picture. I use scenes that stimulate me and in the painting I build my theme into it.
3. About Journeys and Tourism
Leaving a familiar place, makes you see those things left behind from a different
perspective, more distant and often more clear. We may choose to travel in solitude
to escape a society does not satisfy our needs. People who do not get along with
themselves will not stay away for long. When people go travelling they need to feel
at home inside themselves and self-confident
A true wanderer is looking for something, not avoiding something. When we return,
our view is sharper and yet calm. On a journey we lose our personal bonds: the
world might appear simplified and the human find him/herself in the middle of the
sublime earth. To leave for a short while can often be for rest and recovery, when
the patterns of life seem to be a less complex structure in a foreign environment The
duties, worries and concerns we impose on ourselves in settled environments
disappear and we can see more clearly where we come from and in which direction
we are heading.
People who have found their vocation do not hurt their fellows through competition,
vanity, greedy, jealousy... and they do not see this in other people, because they are
busy with their life and in their own world.
"In cities people often fight each other and you see constant sorrow and
grief." (Freya Stark,!893-1993)
distant cultures, for example to cope with stress in their managerial position. This
pilfering from foreign cultures also seems to be a quick way to get interesting a r t
styles with the flair of somewhere else...
" I t is my responsibility to "travel" differently. I do not believe in the politics
of the western culture. Religion and spirit have disappeared and swapped to
capitalism. This system has not a f u t u r e . " (Susan Sonntag, "Styles of radical
will", page 193-204)
It surprised me to read this radical judgement of Susan Sontag about her own
culture and close surround. H e r text also speaks about hope that the f u t u r e
generation becomes a w a r e of danger the Western Society carries in its lifestyle.
I tried to create a distance from the rules I grew up with to find new ways, new
options. I need to wander to open my perspective to enable me the ability to see,
understand and realise more. A friend described it to me as "Wanting to leave the
room with mirrors because life is outside".
Freya Stark describes an ideal way of travelling.
"A journey is going to the furthest horizons outside in the landscape and/or
to the furthest inner horizons. Journeys happen in the material world and in
the own imagined world. And these wolds/ realities are one, reveal each other
and go over each other."
Mohamed said,
" Search where ever you can for knowledge".
" A diamond which never leaves the mine will be never polished"
In the 19"" century tourism began. Before that t h e r e were pilgrims, tradesmen and
warriors. The pilgrim interrupts his normal life, opens up for different forms of
realisation (initiation) and changes his consciousness. His journey goes to a holy,
spiritual place and as the belief says, the shrine produces luck. His journey is f o r a
spiritual good and doesn't function like a material good. T h e r e is no supply and
demand. The pilgrim reaches the real sphere, the holy sphere. In some ways it is not
important where you go because you always carry yourself.
"Wherever the caravan travels to, their Mecca is always the love"
(Jakaloddin Rumi)
The tourist is looking for difference. She/he consumes difference and the meaning of
places exhausts.
Hakim Bay, a post modern writer, suggests that tourism has its roots in w a r . It is a
symptom of imperialism, economically, political and spiritually. Nothing really
touches the tourist. He/she has need for something authentic but everything that is
authentic avoids the tourist. The tourist kills any meaning. In western society
spectacles overtake culture and culture disappears. The new culture is shopping
centres and talk shows. O u r education is to w o r k and to consume and tourism is
only a virtual reality.
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), was a mystic, philosopher, poet, sage and spiritual teacher.
He wrote 12 books about his visions in Mecca and short portraits of 100 of his
companions, who were important philosophers, humble dervishes, insane people,
anonymous female Saints and secret masters.
In his world existed a magical view onto the world, a reality out of signs and
mysteries. The idea that something has happened by chance was refused.
immediately open to magic influences. He is not looking for a norm in life and also honouring insane people as helpless saints.
Some may say that mysteries happens through amazement ...but the mysteries of the path can not be eliminated by being rational. Sufis believe that objectivism and subjectivism are not opposites, that they complement each other.
Being a host was a sacred action and ritual, which was destroyed by tourism. The travels of contemporary artists can be compared with the journeys of the Dervish. They both live their ideals searching for unification with nature and god. But spiritual journeys and living a spiritual life are problematic in the capitalist system.
The artist has to go new ways. Other life styles, which interest us, can help to lose intolerance and a wrong consciousness and to free our perception. But in the contemporary world there is hardly space for a nomad lifestyle.
4. Painting technique. New work.
I paint out of lines. I create a kind of hybrid, woven picture space, breaking up my formerly, common perception of space trough over layering of close and far elements through out the painting, whilst describing an environment of my experience. I concentration on the essential rhythms and structures in nature for giving the basic composition to my painting. My aim is a luminous, moving picture space and I involve what I see, live and think in my work through narratives. I research about the relative way of seeing trough observing artists and the idea that people see what they believe and that the art work is the result of that certain belief. My main tool is colour and my aim to find a specific colour language.
In 1993, my painting style changed from an aggressive, gestural style, without figurative elements. The imagery of these paintings were abstract and worked onto a large paper surface, with the aim to express emotions in a direct way rather than feeding the viewer a narrative. I abandoned formal techniques and tools and at times I worked directly onto the paper surface with my hands or cloths.
I moved into a figurative style, whilst still in an expressive manner in 1995, with my research in Georg Baselitz and William De Kooning. Learning from their
developments I focused on the movement in the figure and raw guttural use of colour in the composition.(imagel4)
This then led to placing the figure in the landscape, urban and rural, in 1998. The figure became a locating point to describe space and its illusion of space. This illusion of space was created through the painting of reflections, mostly interiors of train and its windows to the outside. It was the concept of space through reflections and refraction that I chose to develop upon and have carried into my present work.(imagel5)
two walking 1997, 250/170cm, oil on canvas
Walking 01, 02 and 03 1995
Lake Carolina 1998 140/140cm eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
Trainriding (Ukraine) 1997 100/130cm eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas (first train riding painting)
realise and understand, of what interests and touches me. The concept of my work is constantly developing and becoming more complex.
At the same time I was influenced by the Aboriginal Bark paintings in Australia I became interested in Sue Rothenbergs work. I manly looked at her way to leave decoration behind in the painting and to find a reduced way in describing the forms, using colours and light and dark parts.
Presently I look at Euen Macleod's work because of his way putting the figure into the environment. He seem to make the figure disappear in the picture space, by using the same colours and structures for the figure and surrounds.
The foundations of my work are subject based, with a rough idea of the colour and composition, very free and pure, with thin egg tempera or acrylic colour and dry colour pigments. Each painting has its theme, which I work out in sketches and watercolour paintings. I puzzle the image together out of my outdoor studies (the work in front of the motif) and select the draft by their composition.
After working in the landscape for a while I get a feeling for the movement and light of the area/ space I am painting.(imagel6)
After my return to Australia through the scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in 2001 1 managed slowly to select the necessary techniques from all the different forms of language I had used. I stepped back from painting the Australian landscape to paint the ripples in the sand and sea. I copied, followed these ripples, studying nature's drawings. In the studio I use these sketches as the bones for my work and tried to repeat the energy, which I felt outside and inside myself through colour and form.
pictogrammes in my painting. The result is that the person becomes a symbol, a simple not pathetic form, representing humans. I began recently involving these symbols, which I develop from more precise drawings of people or things, into my movement/ structure/ water paintings. This way I am able to focus on painting an abstract, energetic movement and also to fill in my personal stories through a semi narrative. The first painting of this style which brought my different interests together is "empty bucket", August 2001.(iraagel7)
O u r environment is the base for life and in our time more and more abused. It is very important to me to deal in my work with my fascination for nature, about what of nature is left in our environment, the relation humans- environment and about pure human stories.
I want to reflect in my work these essential energies and themes. The new series of my work is the first step to a more homogenous fusing of my reflections and interests. The more often I repeat my view onto a certain scene in the Australian land/seascape the more I see, observe.
Colour
I use as little white as possible because I believe the transparent layers of thin colour give a certain light to the painting, if the colours are clean.
The other change I have made in my paintings is my use of colour.
I was very influenced by the new colours I found in Australia after my first year in Canberra 1999. Especially the blue of the clear sky I tried to use in my work. For 2 years I worked around colours which I mixed with phalo blue or I used pure colour transparentness. A main focus in my painting has been, over the last years,
2001 painting plain air, Black Rocks National Park, New South Wales
2001 Seals Rock National Park, New South Wales
i?
2002 watercolour on paper 25/30cm
Canberra 2001
Tongues 70/70 cm, acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas
New space 210/140 cm with 2 cm gaps, acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas Around lOnO cm, acrylic, pigments, oil on canvas
Canberra 2001
open sky, I found myself painting with nearly nothing but blue, in particular Pthalo blue.
I felt this dominant colour had become a habit for me and also too illustrative for painting the image of water. My logical thinking tells me that the colour blue is
related to an image like water, sky or a symbol for spirituality or purity.
I use water as my motif because I need the character of water in my work which I see as one of the foundations in life: the movement, rhythm, energy, the light, its
depth. I also need the metaphors, which the element water transfers for me, for the idea behind my pictures: reflections, transparency and its constant changing form.
In Berlin, 2000,1 used the image from drawings for my paintings which I collected in Australia in 1999, being an exchange student. The structure out of lines slowly became stronger, the colour secondary.
A year ago, in 2001,1 felt disturbed by the blue elements in my work. It interfered
with seeing my painting abstractly. I imagined and copied the seascape while I
painted, but my aim is to work with the pure structure and the reflections. Blue also
was not longer enough for using my colour language. The allusion in my work to "sky and water" disturbed my aims.
After returning to Australia in June 2001,1 found that working with blue is to
literally descriptive. I felt like copying a certain spot on the coast. That irritated me
and I could not concentrate enough on my subject, theme and aim. I also knew that I can use a much broader complex language out of colour in my work if I free myself
from the colour of the image I pretend to see in the seascape.
By dropping the use of plain blue as the main colour in the painting I was able to see
far more colours in the land which also allowed more creative freedom in the studio.
M y use of colour is now decided intuitively or chosen after certain combinations.
I found a new direction through the exploration of the colour of my skin. This led to
My use of colour is now intuitive or chosen after discovering certain combinations. I found a new direction through the exploration of the colour of my skin. This led to the application of Indian yellow in many mixtures of orange, red and green. Indian yellow seems very transparent and has an enormous light energy. This colour led me to orange. It gave my work another character and was the first step to ray 'fusion'.
The painting "new space" (October 2001) is my first work with a new, free use of cotour. I still use colours observed in the landscape but avoid the use of blue. I get different tones from studies in situ but looked at any colour other than blue. My main colour now is Indian yellow. I try to create light shifts in my paintings to represent the effects of light on water in orange, red, green,....- tones, expanding through the whole painting with a far more abstract idea.(imagel8)
Transparent layers
The transparent shifts and the light in my work are my metaphor for the view and understanding I have of my environment and the world.
Every individual seems to see things different, through its character, schooling, tradition and culture. We also see what we want to see. Painting layers is for me painting different views from one point of perception. I can not see with someone else eyes but I can understand that there a r e millions of different views, all near each other and visible through each other. The different views exist all near each other with the same strength and each shift stands for the understanding and belief of someone.
Painting reflections is a way of multiplying all these views and ways of seeing. The painting shows a moment of some of these views or beliefs together. Different perspectives exist on one surface.
Powerline 2002
120/120cm acrylic, pigments,oil
Flow 2001
80/80cm oil on canvas on canvas
iii>.
yellow flow 2002 100/540cm (usually with 2cm gaps) eggtempera, pigments, oil on canvas
Painting reflections enables me to reconfigure the view from fore ground to background is interrupted. When the sky reflects in the sea it looks like a chain of sand (material, ground) / trans lucent substance /material / translucent
substance...and so on. The image should resemble an organic grid or to several grids above each other.
1 work with this motif because it seems to have some truth about it: something solid - understanding, follows on something translucent, transparent - something spiritual, incomprehensible.
5. Aboriginal Artists and Bark Paintings
The aboriginal community Yirrkala lies by the sea in notrth east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The ripples of the sea appear in most of the paintings 1 saw painted by local Aboriginal artists. The journey to Arnhem Land in 1999 was magnificent for my understanding and seeing.
Dhuwarrwarr Marika and Djambawa Marawili are two artists who paint with the colours of their land: red, yellow ochre, black and white. They paint in cross hatched lines. Looking at their paintings seemed like looking onto the ocean in the sun light They say that the more a painting sparkles the more present are the ancestral spirits. The luminosity on the Aboriginal bark paintings, woven out of the cross-hatched lines and the treatment of figurations in a relative picture space, reminded me again to the Medieval Icon paintings. For me personal the luminosity in pictures becomes an essential element of painting and is a main research point in my work.
The cross-hatched patterns relate to me to movement across space and time, which can be extended in any direction, in infinite manner.
of her land and does not know what other artists need. She was very tolerant and
focused on her vision, although a w a r e and interested in Western a r t .
I was not able to return to the Community Yirrkala in this year while I am studying.
Sue Jenkins a curator for Aboriginal art in the National Gallery gave me instead a
tour through the storeroom with all the b a r k paintings. I saw probably more works
than I would have seen in the place w h e r e these paintings a r e made. I looked at
works from north-east Arnhem L a n d , around Yirrkala and Raminginning.
I studied the different ways of cross-hatch p a i n t i n g . The form of t h e pattern takes
all sorts of forms and it looks to me like t h e r e were different painting epochs in the
works, but it is more the style of an individual artist. David Malangi's work is still
absolutely present in my mind. He paints leaves in a not regular way out of ochre
tones. His approach to composition is f r e e and energetic and reminded me to A r t
Nuveau.
Nothing on the bark painting seems to be too much. T h e figurations in his painting
a r e embedded in the whole structure and movement. The line work is richer and
more free than in other bark paintings I saw.
From the artist Djambawa Marawilli I saw some very interesting patterns with 6
corners, one next the other.
Like this:
Some areas on the large bark painting a r e primed ochre with images of crocodiles
and fishes. The last line of the regular fine lines a r e mostly white, some ochre. A
bright sparkling movement runs over the painting and seems to run out of the
painting. I recognised this painter the first time in the exhibition " salt water
country" in the Drill Hall Gallery in 1999, because of the brightness and the intense
feeling of moving, shiny water on the s u r f a c e of the painting. White colour is used a
lot in his work.
In John M a n d j u w i s work I found also t h a t the patterns of the painting could extend
out of the bark in any direction and observing the picture gave me a meditative
I am absolute impressed by the way figuration is involved in the structure of the
cross-hatching, in a balanced homogenous way. Also about the mysterious, symbolic
form language.
The artist W a n d j u k Marika made super detailed cross-hatching in bent lines, not
like D. Marawilli in straight lines. The paintings I saw are moving, bright energy.
One of the pieces I saw seemed like water moving in zig zag.
Looking at most of these works I have a premonition of what subject is painted and
a strong feeling of space, movement and light. I can see ripples in water, sand and
sky out of an abstract, reduced formed language. These works give me an idea of the
qualities of intensity and aura paintings can reach. I am also drawn to the simple
outcome of these works even they a r e highly complex.
Herman Nitsch always said, that a good painting "carries i t s e l f . That means it
looks light and clear, but studying the details you find out that there a r e complex
specific compositions leading to the final form.
I also researched the combination of flat image and the incredible depth of these
paintings with the cross-hatched "ripples". That made me realise the bird's eye view
of many paintings.
"Some Aboriginal paintings show a kind of a bird view on the land/sea. I
read about the inner journey of the Pintupi people that when the person
sleeps its spirit leaves the body through the belly button and travels over the
land and has an optical overall view. The spirit travels to ceremonial places,
over f a r distance and also gets messages about events. Ceremonial body and
ground paintings describe mythological facts and also the geographical
organisation of the landscape, which the spirit visits in the dream."
(Robert Andreas Fischer)
" B a r k paintings of the K u n w i n j k u , a r e one of the activities that promotes a
sense of wider regional unity, that demonstrate region wide breadth of their
of regional ceremonies. Art is linked to the social identity of the artist. The repertoire of designs is variable because of the variety of social groups and different teachers. The transmission of knowledge in relation to art creates frames of meaning."
( "Seeing the Inside" Luke Taylor 1996 Chapter 4)
I realised that the ancestral knowledge of people in Yirrkala is treated as sacred in the theme of paintings and in the paintings but there is also openness for events and developments happening now. The aspiration of individuals is integrated. Bark paintings seem to be a timeless record of Aboriginal life and spirituality.
What gives meaning and an aura to an art work if the artist of the western society falls out of the structure of life, if the connection between elements: land, humans, animals, nature, spirits and time is disturbed or destroyed? If there is no structure any more what holds the fragments together? Maybe only the own view... Fragments stay fragments but a certain belief can make the fragments stick together. It fascinated me that nearly every image in the bark paintings in North-East Arnhem Land was built out of lines.
6. Lines and Fragments
sometimes reflected. It describes the sky, which reHects in the water. The colour and the form reflect, from the far distance till in front of your feet. This could also be the repetition of the structure in the clouds and the structure in the ripples of the sand, which is often similar. That challenged my way of seeing. I never saw so many reflections and so much depth in the land/seascape before, not even through researching for ray previous motive in painting, that of window reflections. I saw a repetition of colour and form over the whole area when the sky reflects in the sea. The horizon came close and the image became a mixture of close and far elements. I started seeing my own environment more freely.
The Yirrkala church panels are some of the strongest art pieces I saw, with a similar aura to that of icon paintings. They are in the Yirrkala Art Centre in a room, which is built for these two bark paintings. Before they were in the Yirrkala church to represent the fusion between the Aboriginal culture and the Christian culture.
After this journey to Northern Territory I decided to work more seriously with lines. In the last 2 years the image of the seascape became secondary and I focus on the transparency, the movement and structure of the line work on my painting. It changed from its outer form of the motif to its characteristic and capacity. When I work in the landscape I concentrate on rhythmical movements, energy, light and colour, trying to transform it onto my picture plane. In the studio I work with lines over the abstract, gestured grounds of my painting. Line after line, I create the colour tones and figurations I need.
are a symbol for what I can't see. They are a repetition of the negative spaces
between the painted lines.
Pieces, which are out of more than 3 panels I call polypticons. Painting on parts and
putting them together or painting on one piece and pulling it apart to present with
gaps, creates the polypticon. This process enables me to reflect truly my way of
seeing, - one built up of fragments. The view becomes more and more complex, but
there is always more information that is needed to form a complete image
(understanding). When I work on single frame painting it is usually to defines a
clearer understanding about the image. I can concentrate fully on the whole picture
plane and figure more out about colour and form. Recently I have been making a
line of single pieces and so it becomes a series again, and in a way a story
board.(imagel9)
In my next trip to Northern Territory my research will be about the different
pictorial translations of the country. My interest is how different the mental
reception of our surroundings can be, not the style of each individual artist. The painting is a result of the way of seeing and being. Realising different perceptions
changes my imagery. My style develops through praxis and concentration to paint
what is my inner view. I see the Aboriginal culture as a contemporary painting
Destination orange 2002 185/125cm acrylic, pigments, oil on wood
Timeless 2002 185/125cm acrylic, pigments, oil on wood
Snakes in the Macquarie Marshes, New South Wales September 2001
7. Material
I like to w o r k with the basic materials and mix my own painting medium and sometimes colours. It takes more time and experimenting but I like to know what materials are in my colours.
A s a painting medium 1 use kind of a Venetian turpentine. It is specially for painting thin shifts and looks like a glossy film between the kernels of the pigment. The colour becomes supple and even the colour is used very thin it does not loose its light and shine.
I mix the medium out of stand oil (thick line oil),dammar and turpentine. One part oil and dammar, at least 10 parts turpentine.
I often use dry colour pigments. Some colours are more dusty or fat and they do not mix well with the binder. I wet these pigments with methylated spirits. After that they easy mix with the binder.
For egg tempera I use one part whole eggs (2-3), half part line oil and half a part d a m m a r (liquid in turpentine).(image20)
I shake the eggs and put the line oil in the jar first. That is important, because otherwise it would not become a homogenous liquid... The dammar on top and mix again.
To this binder can be added about one part water to make the colour thinner. I do not know yet how to use this binder very thinly which is important for my work.
Acrylic I use only if I have to for thin parts and the beginning of a painting. I try to avoid acrylic because it becomes darker after drying and has to me a plastic character and not the body and light of oil colour.
8. Conclusion
Two m a j o r developments occurred during this year of my studies.
O n e is the direction my w o r k has taken: A mixture of painted narratives about my
environment, fused together, with ray aim to create a deep luminous colour space
out of moving patterns, full of light and energy.
The colour is in common with the theme of the work.
I see my painting now at point with a clear pictorial language, independent from the
seascape image and to be able to deal with contemporary issues and allowing the
design of my work to support my idea.
I see my working process in the last year as a kind of circle and with these new
discoveries I can head to the next body of work. All these working circles lie one
above the other and they bnild up on each other. Every round allows a little bit
more strength and clarity in the work.
The other change is happening through my research, which enables me to
understand more the idea behind the visual work I do. Following deeper what
influenced me, gives me a broader view on my environment and a more complex
knowledge, especially about the Aboriginal culture and also in relation to t h e
Western culture.
Slowly I become more familiar with Australia as a country, its people and artists. I
believe that living in two countries, opposite on the globe will influence my w o r k in
the future. In a way it makes distance and the time passed elsewhere relative, like
one layer over another. Reality for me is now related to rhythms and familiar
actions in life. The time away from a place makes me experience this place new a f t e r
returning. The linear rhythm is interrupted and old attitudes disappear. So my
Egg tempera:
Put whole eggs (~2, the v.'hite and the yellow part) into a glass jar with lid and shake v^ell. Measure the egg liquid as 1 part. Make a line on the jar for measuring. Add Vi part iine seed oil and shake -weii again. Then add Va part dammar liquid (soak dammar itemels
the day before in turpentine. The dammar should have a honey like consistence after soaking in turpentine.
You can add up to 1 part water. The more water you use the more "dry" the colour becomes. If you add more line seed oil the tempera colour becomes more like oil colour. You can use egg tempera as under painting for oil colour. Egg tempera dries quicker then oil colours and has a high colour intensity , like oil colour.
Some pigments don't mix well with the binder. For these you stiould use some drops of methalyted spirits. After making the pigment wet, it mixes easy with the binder.
Some pigments react with tap water to a chewing gum like mass. You can prevent this through using distilled water instead of tap water.
Soaking the dammar;
NyLofs} SJC.
W I T H
. T a R P £ N T - t N E
Mixing egg tempera;
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Bibliography
Ibn Arabi Creative Imagination in the Sufism Princeton University Press, 1969
Hakim Bay Overcoming Tourism Musee Litim c. 1990
Enzo Carli Landscape in Art 3000 BC- today. William Morrow&Company, New York
1980, p.220
Enzo Carli, Hugh of Saint Victor, Landscape in Art William Morrow&Co
N.Y. 1980 p. 27
E. Carii, Henri Frederic Amiel, Landscape in Art William Morrow&Co.
N.Y. 1980, p.9
Robert Andreas Fischer
Pavel Florenskij the Iconostasis 1922, SVS Press 1996
Saltwater Country. Bark painting from Yirrkala Jennifer Isaacs
Publishing 1999, p.24
Dhuwarrwarr Marika 1999
JacintaLai, 2001
Mondrian, Interview From Heinz- Norbert Jocks with Luc Tymans, Venice
Biennalle 2001
Robert Pirsig Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance William Morrow
New York 1974
Natali Rodriguez , Masters candidate, Glass Workshop I.T.A. 2002
Judith Ryan Spirit in Land, p.76
Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will.What is happening in America, Farrar,
Strauss & Giroux, New York 1966, p. 193-204
Freya Stark Views fron Abraod The Spectator Book of Travel Writing,
London 1988
I
CLAUDIA CHASELING
(nee. Poeusch) C u r r i c u l u m V i t a eBom Munich, Germany 1973
Education
1993 :Academy for Visual Arts, Munich, Prof. Page
iSummer Academy Salzburg, Austria, Prof. Herman Nitsch, Painting :Academy for Visual Arts, Vienna, Austria, Prof Lehmden
94-00 iUniversity for Visual Arts Berlin { UdK ) Prof Marwan 1999 : Graduation, UdK Berlin
:Exchange student at the ANU, NITA, School of Art, Australia -14 months. Masters program
2000 :Masters Graduation UdK Berlin
01-02 :Masters Candidate to the Canberra School of Art, Australia
Professional E x p e r i e n c e
1996 : Employed in the" Gallerie auf Zeit" Auguststrasse Berlin 1997 : Project Berlin- Bologna
:Assistant for Prof Herman Nitsch, Summer Academy Salzburg, Austria, painting .Painting Symposium " Face to Face" in Chernivitsi, Ukraine
1998 : Research to New York and New Orleans
1999 :Research to 8 Aboriginal Communities in Northern Territory and W. A. 00-01 :Assistant for the painter Franz Ackerman, Berlin
Exhibitions (solo)
1996 :Flat Gallery, Berlin Prenzlauerberg with K. Zorn 1997 :Gallery im Alcatraz, Hallein, Austria
99-02 :Permanent Exhibition of paintings. Bio Company, Berlin Prenzlauerberg 2000 :" Made in Australia" Photospace, ANU, NITA, School of Art
2002 :"..between the lines", CSA Gallery, ANU, NITA, School of Art, Canberra
Exhibitions (group-selected)
1997 :Gallery Muehlenstrasse
:Prints in the Italian Institute for Cultur, Beriin :" Klasse Marwan " UdK Berlin
1998 :County Museum of Art, Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA :Berlin-Bologna Group, Sale Museale di Barracano, Bologna, Italy : Berlin-Bologna Group, Messe Zentrum, Berlin Alexanderplatz :"Blind Date " 6 painters. Academy for Visual Arts, Munich 1999 : Graduation and Exhibition, UdK Berlin, Painting
:Gallene Krevareb, Berlin 2000 :" Plus" Gallery Pankow, Beriin
:Condat Gallery Berlin " Klasse Marwan " : Masters Graduation and Exhibition, UdK Berlin 2002 :Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria
:Fleurieu Art Prize, Mc Laren Vale SA :G7 Art Space Berlin
A w a r d s
1997 Prize of the Messezentrum Beriin Alexanderplatz to Beriin- Bologna Group 1998 :Travel Prize from BMW to Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA
1999 :Exchange scholarship from NICA, UdK Berlin, to the Canberra School of Art 2001 :Scholarship from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a one
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