Alice Byrne's depictions of houses nestled comfortably in the landscape transcend the banality of surburban life, as she invests a sense of beauty into the ordinary and familiar. Nests features paintings and drawings based on French houses, particularly of the Burgundy region, along with those of country Victoria. In both locals, Byrne succeeds in relaying the changing, intangible qualities of mood and atmosphere that permeate this body of work.
It was in France that Byrne discovered a way of approaching the landscape that laid the foundation for her current practice, when she travelled there in 1998 as part of her Bachelor of Visual Arts at the National Art School, Sydney. These early explorations, painted en plein air, demonstrate the reductive principles of breaking down the landscape into its most essential forms and shapes. A method that French master Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906) first applied to his homeland, creating works which are now embedded into our visual understanding of the land. By layering form and setting up spatial relationships between varying structural elements, Byrne creates dynamic compositional tension in these early works. A technique still integral to how she composes her pictures.
Byrne recalls being immediately struck by France's natural beauty, where some of the old buildings are as intrinsic to the landscape as their neighbouring hills and fields. Travelling there again in 2000 after winning the prestigious Brett Whitleley Art Scholarship, her last visit was 2005. On this trip she was compelled to capture the Parisian architecture along with farmhouses and chateaus in the Burgundy region. All the while trying to avoid the pure prettiness that threatens to overtake an accurate visual rendition of a countryside where, as she states, everything already looks like a painting.
Back in Melbourne the desire to contine her perceptual investigations into different nests continued. She visited Trentham in country Victoria to make work responding to the very different Australian architecture and landscape. The varience in light between the two countries has had a profound effect on Byrne's work. From the gentle, soft French light, to the more contrasting, stronger light of Australia. But regardless of location her practice is rooted in direct experience, and relies heavily on the watercolours and charcoal drawings made while in the landscape. Returning to the studio Byrne works her paintings up, drawing on memory along with empirical reference to recreate her subject.
Verging on abstracion, Byrne's planes of colour have a resonating presence. The title nests chosen for this series is an appropriate one, as its positive, harmonious connotations synchronise well with her imagery. Yet they are not simply picturesque views, rather there is a palpable moodiness to the work, enhanced by the fact that each scene is devoid of humanity. The potent symbol of a house takes on emotive characteristics of its own when it exists as a trace, or evidence of its creators, who have vanished from the scene. Baye (2006) illustrates the heightened mood that emerges throughout the series. The use of a black ground gives the work a sombre quality, and combined with the single illuminated window, it is a highly evocative painting.
The chromatic depth in Byrne's work is the result of layering her colours and building them up slowly through many glazes of oils. Their transparency and the soft, blurred edges of her colour fields lends her paint application a luminous quality. This is well illustrated in Southeast by south 3 (Nest Series) (2007). Here semi-abstracted planes of rich colour come together creating a meditative quality that brings to mind the still-lifes of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964). Like Byrne he too focuses on the domestic realm, though an interior one, choosing bottles, vases and jars as the subject of his arrangements of form. The paintings of both artists share a restful, contemplative air, taking a view of reality that emphasises the abstract nature of pure form.
Byrne's nests are timeless and contemporary. They are paintings that need not shout to be heard, but rather contain a subtlety that indicates the artist's keen perception and sensitivity to her surrounds.
Marguerite Brown
2007
Nests exhibition catalogue, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne, 2007