Genius loci

The Australian landscape is a rich starting point for the
exploration of a broad variety of topics.
From the connection to Country of Australia’s First Peoples through
to the contemporary re-imagining of what a landscape is, artists
celebrate the beauty, power and fragility of the natural world. In this
exhibition the artists share a common interest in landscape. Working
with glass they respond in a variety of ways to challenge the viewer’s
perception of what is often regarded as a stylistically rigid genre.
The varied responses embrace and intersect with social, political,
spiritual and emotional perspectives revealing the Australian
landscape to be a dynamic - often highly charged - space that is
revered as well as contested.
The exhibiting artists’ works highlight parallels and contrasts,
establishing a compelling dialogue between each artwork.
The muted palette of Kirstie Rae’s substantial work Open
door 1 (2018) correlates with the subtle print and glass works
Shift #2 and Shift #3 (2017) by Hannah Gason. Punctuating
these are the deep tones of Amy Schleif’s work Seeing No.13-a
(2015), a work that the artist defines as “ …exploration
through the use of colour layering, reflections and the
passage of time.”
Other accents are provided by the rich, earthy hues and
visually textured surfaces of Holly Grace’s Moonlit - Thredbo
Valley (2017) and Moonlit - Mt Tantangara (2017). Digital
images from photographic expeditions into the remote
regions of the Australian Highlands have been translated
onto the surface of large-scale glass artworks through a
photo-sensitive sandblast resist technique. The resulting work
is both technically and aesthetically pleasing.
A startlingly beautiful work by Jessica Loughlin sums up the
evocative possibilities of landscape abstraction. With its
out-of-focus planes of white on white, Unfolding Continuum
viii (2018) is inspired by the South Australian salt flats. The
softness disallows any definitive identification of place,
landmark or horizon. By way of this disorientating visual
effect, Loughlin recreates the sensation of a mirage of fog
enveloping a silent landscape.
Brenda L Croft’s lead crystal stone axes cast during her
residency at Canberra Glassworks in 2017 draw inspiration
from “…the original material cultural object that found me
(not the other way around) on my people’s country during
site visits with Gurindji elders and community members
back in June 2014.” Installed in the darkened link area of the
exhibition space, Grounded (black on red), Grounded (red)
and Grounded (white) resonate with the colours of the red,
white and black crystal that in the artist’s words “… reference
corporeality – blood and skin colour, a sliding scale of
authenticity and eugenicist classification.”
Taken as a whole, the works in Genius loci emit much
information about the changing nature of rural and urban
landscapes and the impact of man on the environment.
The diversity of the artists’ approach to landscape allows
for associations and dialogues to converge and diverge, for
shifts in perception and to reveal the flexibility of the term
‘landscape’ as viewed through the many faceted prism of art.
2 | GENIUS LOCI | 5 APRIL TO 3 JUNE