Are we ever really in control? Perhaps the most skillful way to live is to be completely present in every moment and to let go of the ego. The process of painting is best when you can put this into practice and allow the “happenstance”.
The theme of the exhibition, “Locus of control” is a reference to the endless tension experienced in the painting process, between the sense of total mastery that we have when we are in control of the painting, and the abyss of disempowerment when the painting refuses to obey. The paintings emerge from a dialogue between imagination and reality, between being in control and surrendering.
Our paintings are the products of such a process – they are not descriptive of the process.
Amanda Hayes
My painting reflects many facets of my life: the contradictions of a life of comfort and ease in a sea of human suffering and environmental destruction; the need for clarity, order and tranquillity; the fun of creativity, craft and play. I paint for my own enjoyment, not for polemical, therapeutic or commercial reasons. Painting teaches me patience, it teaches me to draw on “that deep inner wellspring of the divine”. When you see my painting, you see me.
Amanda Hayes -I am calling you, 2019
Amanda Hayes – Rainbow dog, 2016
Amanda Hayes – Ananias, 2018
Amanda Hayes – Of greatest concern, 2015
Judy McKune
My submissions include a collection of both recent works, as well as paintings that were started at Greg Kerr’s courses. I have continued to develop each artwork over time as my ideas and emotional connection to them have evolved.
My love of the natural environment and deep connection with animals is a common thread through my work. I am concerned that human greed, selfishness, and exploitation of natural resources has initiated a rapid rate of degradation and destruction that is largely irreversible. Many of the works reflect contradictory and ambiguous imagery that together suggests a story of both structure and chaos. Efforts to create, design and preserve are interrupted by events that are often beyond our control, despite our best efforts. I strive to continue to see the beauty around me, remain hopeful and portray the hope that is required to protect what remains …. because it matters.
Each source and every image is personal; however, once combined they generated their own narrative. I allowed the emerging story to direct me along often unintended yet exciting paths. While I am creating the artwork, they are, in fact also creating themselves, and guiding and teaching me.
If an artwork makes a viewer stop, engage and enjoy their own interpretation, then I will feel that my role as a storyteller has been achieved.
Judy McKune – It Was at Night, 2022
Judy McKune – Old Masters New Spaces Fountain, 2016
Judy McKune – Nordic Noir, 2019
Judy McKune – Les Chefs, 2019
Ingrid Engelbrecht
“The more you perceive life through a mental screen of abstraction and conceptualization, the more lifeless and flat the world around you becomes.” Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth.
This rings true for me, and therefore in my art I’d like the viewer to be in that space between thought and perception, like a day dream. Simple subjects and uncomplicated compositions to hold the viewer’s attention and keep the mind away from thought. The subjects are mundane and of natural themes, sometimes mixed up and combined in order to gently highlight an idea.
Our world is full of wonders, I’d like to evoke that kind of sense of joy in what I create. I believe that great peace and enjoyment can come from perceiving the small things around us. The techniques and media used combined with these subjects should be anything but flat and lifeless if this locus of control works.
Ingrid Engelbrecht – Memoirs of a beach house – Saldanha mussels, 2022
Ingrid Engelbrecht – Memoirs of a beach house – Dogs on the beach, 2022
Ingrid Engelbrecht – Whiskers on kittens, 2019
Ingrid Engelbrecht – Dream, 2021