2009 - Marguerite Brown
2007 - Marguerite Brown
Melbourne based artist Alice Byrne has long sought out houses for subject matter, exploring the compositional possibilities provided by their flat planes and intersecting lines. Looking at her earlier work the skill in which she deconstructs architectural forms into their essential elements is immediately apparent, whether they are urban apartments, country abodes in the Burgundy region of France or houses located in rural Victoria. In soft glazes of oil paint, Byrne blurs the edges of luminous fields of colours to create the serene, contemplative quality that defines her work.
However this exhibition sees the introduction of other intriguing elements, disturbing the peace that pervades certain previous paintings. Byrne has returned to a small disused school-house located in country Victoria to investigate why she is continually drawn to paint its simple structure. Perhaps the remoteness of this little dwelling, now used only for the odd weekend retreat, is part of its appeal as it allows the artist’s imagination to roam freely from the wald found in reality, to one created by the imagination.
The high German word wald used in the title of this exhibition is significant when considering its meaning as referring to woods or forest, but also to an idyllic, unspoilt wilderness which at once captivates and forbids. Indeed, it is difficult to dissociate these ideas from a European vision of a forest as it has been conceived of in literature and folk lore, which represents the uncontrolled and unknown. By using the term wald to describe the place painted in these works, the artist immediately conjures a mythic wood heavy with mysterious connotations.
In this context it is the attention given to creating these rich wooded surroundings, so evocative when seen encroaching upon the solitary shack that sets these paintings apart. Byrne seems to relish depicting the twisted foliage and organic forms that snake around the rigid structure of the house, as seen in The Fox’s Sun. In other works we see her unique sensibility for colour expressed in striking combinations like an intense orange roof next to verdant green foliage. However throughout all, Byrne has used a real house as subject, but it is her imagination that has created the wald which it inhabits. A place strangely comforting and alluring – yet containing a barely perceptible threat perched on the edge of consciousness. It is this unidentifiable presence, or unknown thing which is the menace that one can actually feel when alone in the wild, and which gives these works their subtle tension. They are half real, half imagined, and as such exist in a kind of fey twilight.
Byrne’s ethereal touch is demonstrated in The Floating Path, which sees the house painted in tones of glowing blue on a pale ground to give the effect that it is actually hovering, or floating as the title suggests. In contrast a sense of unease manifests in the silhouetted figure standing alongside the house in The Shadowed Self. The ambiguity surrounding his/her inclusion into the scene immediately sparks questions – is this person an intruder or do they belong there? The same dark figure appears in Grounded, where decorative greenery and vegetation on the ground is juxtaposed with a silhouette, seen from the perspective of someone looking down at their own shadow.
These figures mark the entrance of the human form in Byrne’s work. While populating the paintings seems to be taking a step towards a narrative, ultimately Byrne leaves the viewer to infer what they will. This open ended quality is part of the immense appeal of this exhibition, as each painting successfully transports the viewer into the wald that the artist has invented, yet what we find there is not prescribed. Is this little house one of shelter and comfort, or like in a fairy tale, merely an illusion of refuge that contains something else?
Marguerite Brown
2009
© Marguerite Brown 2009
Into the Wald exhibition catalogue, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne, 2009