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25
Seraphine Pick
Wonderlust
acrylic, oil and graphite on on canvas
signed and dated ’96; title inscribed, signed
and dated on artist’s label affixed verso
2005 x 1606mm
$25 000 – $35 000
42
A dream world full of wonder and possibility is evoked in this
ambiguous and mysterious painting by Seraphine Pick. The
artist’s use of paint and graphite is employed in a manner that
is extremely subtle but powerful. The gauzy, pale planes of
neutral tones reveal ever so seductively, an intimate space
hazily remembered – an ephemeral screen upon which the
viewer can project their own memories or desires.
Wonderlust is a composition of contrasts where smudges
of graphite and veils of layered white and cream paint create
a feeling of both lightness and oppression. Fragments of
figures and architectural elements delicately etched onto
the surface remain tantalisingly apparent yet undefined as
washes of white over-paint erase any perception of stability.
The abstract, underlying grid, stairway and landing leads
to an alternative landscape and a feeling of both ascension
and descent is achieved by the white column-like blocks
off-set by the ghostly stairs. Dualities such as inner scape
and landscape, figurative and abstract are rendered as one
and the same, they vanish and reappear - confounding and
provoking us to search for something tangible in this uneasy
realm.
Seraphine Pick’s painterly style has undergone many
incarnations, as her recent survey exhibition Tell Me
More (2009) epitomised. During the 1990s, work such as
Wonderlust played with the notion of narrative challenged
by a use of monochromatic colour and minimal drawing as
if what remains after an event is scratched into sight like an
echo slightly askew. Broken relationships, erotic encounters
and intuitive images are depicted in surreal domestic settings
or played out among a melange of displaced characters and
objects. These white-out paintings seem to distil emotions
and by their very restraint question memory’s precarious
validity. Pick proposes that the addictive sensuality of
wondering will offer unlimited access to visions buried in the
subconscious.
Jennifer Hay