Jan Maarten Voskuil Art

In this contemporary painting in acrylic on linen mounted on a shaped panel, two vertical blocks of color in dark lapis blue and soft, mottled orange are luminous against thinner neutral sections of exposed linen. Signed, dated and titled on verso. Elizabeth Gourlay’s work is a meditation on color and form, a gradual yet progressive analysis leading to a complex vocabulary of shapes, color and line. Musical composition, emotional states and our collective subconscious resonate within bars, lines and blocks of color. The abstract forms emerge, layer and shift in precisely ordered, carefully composed rhythms. The artist contemplates the elements that make color in reduced forms come to life: size, flatness, relation to its edges, and how the presence of other colors affect how it is perceived. Gourlay draws inspiration from shapes found in everyday life and in her studio. The observed shapes either remain as they are or become simplified to their essential geometric elements. Subtleties in color, area, edge or orientation are the catalyst for emotive responses. Palette is minimized; the artist rarely uses a wide palette within one work. Rather, a broad range of colors are explored and then reduced. Gourlay investigates color properties: complementary or analogous color, value, saturation and color harmony vs. color anomaly. Elizabeth’s Gourlay’s work has been shown extensively throughout the United States. The artist was the recipient of numerous residencies, fellowships and awards including Artist in Residence at the studio of Sol LeWitt in Spoleto, Italy. Gourlay’s work has been written about in The New Criterion, Painters’ Table and Gorky’s Granddaughter, to name a few. Gourlay earned her MFA at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT, and her BA from Edinburgh...

‚The Heat’, handwoven landscape, linen yarn, organic cotton, acrylic textile paint, 60 x 50 cm, 2021. This work are a symbiosis of two disciplines of art, Painting and Weaving. Handw...

As one of the last generation to remember a childhood lived in the desert hunting and gathering with her family, Walangkura Napanangka's paintings recall the stories of country and the location of specific sites in her traditional homeland west of the salt lake of Karrkurutinjinya (Lake Macdonald). Born around 1946, at Tjitururrnga west of Kintore, in the remote and arid country between the Northern Territory and Western Australia, she lived with her father Rantji Tjapangati and mother Inyuwa Nampitjinpa and later, while still a teenager, travelled by foot with her family over the hundreds of kilometres from their remote desert home eventually joining Uta Uta Tjangala's group as they walked in to the settlements of Haasts Bluff and then Papunya. The lure of settlement life with its promise of plentiful food and water belied the harsh conversion they would make to an alien lifestyle with its many problems and unfamiliar demands. The upheaval however, was ameliorated to some degree by the proximity of her immediate family including her mother Inyuwa, adoptive father Tutuma Tjapangati, and sister Pirrmangka Napanangka (now deceased) all of whom became artists. Relocated to the community of Kintore in 1981 when the outstation movement began, Walangkura participated in the historic women's collaborative painting project (1994) that was initiated by the older women as a means of re-affirming their own spiritual and ancestral roots. It was a time of specifically female singing, ceremony and painting, away from the gaze of outsiders and men folk. The huge and colourful canvases that emerged from the women's camp were 'alive with the ritual excitement and narrative intensity of the occasion' (Johnson 2000: 197). Within a year, Papunya Tula Artists, now established at Kintore, had taken on many of these women as full-time artists, revitalising the company after the deaths of many of the original 'painting men'. While individual women forged their own stylistic trajectory, these paintings were immediately distinguishable from the men's more cerebral and symmetrical style. They radiated an exuberant and vibrant energy, the felt heart-beat of women's affinity to country and spirit. Walangkura's early works, created from 1996 onward, are characterized by masses of small markings and motifs covering large areas of canvas. Her favorite colour, a deep sandy orange predominates, accentuated against more somber blacks and reds and dusky greens or yellows. More recent works show a gestural quality though still tightly packed with an intensity of geometric line work representing sandhills. In a sense this provides a strong visual and contextual link to the men's linear style as exemplified by the works of George Tjungurrayi...

Senses, 2021, Horizons Series Handwoven painting, linen, cotton yarn, acrylic textile paint, 65 x 50 cm ‘Horizons’ are a symbiosis of two disciplines of art, Painting and Weaving. ...

Michael Nelson Tjakamarra (also cited as: Michael Nelson Jagamarra, or Jakamara) is a Senior Warlpiri Tribesman and an Elder of the Papunya Community in central Australia. Born c. 1949 at Pikilyi, Vaughan Springs west of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory, he grew up ‘in the bush’. His father was an important tribal elder and medicine man at Yuendumu. It was therefore automatic that he would grow up with the traditional values and knowledge that now influences his paintings. Michael lived at Haasts Bluff until his parents took him to Yuendumu for European education at the mission school. He left school at thirteen, after initiation, and worked at buffalo shooting, driving trucks, droving cattle and in the army, before returning to Yuendumu and then to Papunya to settle in 1976. He worked for a time in the Government store and for the Council. Michael learned to paint at Papunya by observing the senior men such as Billy Stockman and Old Mick Tjakamarra. Although he was tutored by his uncle, Jack Tjupurrula, Michael developed his own style and began painting earnestly from 1983. Michael is known as master desert painter for his depiction of several Dreamings in one painting. For him the understanding of the Dreaming stories that go with his paintings is all important – without the stories his paintings would ‘mean nothing’ as far as he is concerned. His Dreamings include the Possum, Snake, Two Kangaroos, Rock Wallaby, Bush Banana, Honey Ant and Yam. In 1984 Michael won the National Aboriginal Art Award with his painting ‘Three Dreamings’. His reputation as a painter rose rapidly after this. He exhibited his work in the 1986 Biennale of Sydney and featured in ‘The State of the Art’, a British art documentary. In 1987 Michael had been asked to paint a major work (27’long) to decorate the foyer of Sydney’s Opera House and he chose to paint his ‘Possum Dreaming’ story. A great highlight in Michael’s career was in 1988 when he was commissioned to design a 196 sq-metre mosaic in the main forecourt of Australia’s new Parliament House in Canberra. The work was based on his ‘Kangaroo and Emu’ dreaming. Michael was presented to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 11...

Michael Azgour is an artist and educator whose work addresses the impact of digital imagery on contemporary culture. His paintings combine evocative, expressive representation with g...

Between the Landscape and Geometry, hand weaving, linen yarn, wool, acrylic textile paint, 70 x 65 cm, 2024. There is a second painting from this series - my other article here, mat...

"White Willow Lilies", is a horizontally oriented oil painting on canvas, with a layer of resin poured and hardened, to create a translucent, reflective layer, reminiscent to the sur...

In this contemporary abstract painting in acrylic on linen, carefully ordered horizontal blocks of color in salmon, peachy orange, lilac, mauve, gray and light purple are vibrant aga...

Non-objective artist Aimée Farnet Siegel works with color and line through the medium of hand-painted and manipulated paper. Her works inhabit space outside the two-dimensional plan...

Clean and precise, carefully ordered stripes and lines with orange and ochre stripes in a square shape against the neutral beige lined background. This contemporary abstract painting...

In this contemporary geometric abstract painting in acrylic on linen mounted on a shaped panel, carefully ordered horizontal blocks of color in pale green, light teal blue and soft sage are luminous against thinner neutral sections of exposed beige linen. Signed, dated and titled on verso. Elizabeth Gourlay’s work is a meditation on color and form, a gradual yet progressive analysis leading to a complex vocabulary of shapes, color and line. Musical composition, emotional states and our collective subconscious resonate within bars, lines and blocks of color. The abstract forms emerge, layer and shift in precisely ordered, carefully composed rhythms. The artist contemplates the elements that make color in reduced forms come to life: size, flatness, relation to its edges, and how the presence of other colors affect how it is perceived. Gourlay draws inspiration from shapes found in everyday life and in her studio. The observed shapes either remain as they are or become simplified to their essential geometric elements. Subtleties in color, area, edge or orientation are the catalyst for emotive responses. Palette is minimized; the artist rarely uses a wide palette within one work. Rather, a broad range of colors are explored and then reduced. Gourlay investigates color properties: complementary or analogous color, value, saturation and color harmony vs. color anomaly. Elizabeth’s Gourlay’s work has been shown extensively throughout the United States. The artist was the recipient of numerous residencies, fellowships and awards including Artist in Residence at the studio of Sol LeWitt in Spoleto, Italy. Gourlay’s work has been written about in The New Criterion, Painters’ Table and Gorky’s Granddaughter, to name a few. Gourlay earned her MFA at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT, and her BA from Edinburgh...