'TRANSGRESSIONS' - opening at Gallery Thirty Three, WANAKA - JULY 6
Transgressions - Series Notes
New works by Jane Mitchell
An intimate Narrative
One mistake changes many lives.
It was challenging when thinking about making a landscape show whilst based in Seoul, a place that couldn't be further physically and spiritually from the place I had grown up. In fact, I kept coming back to memories surrounding my youth.
Growing up in rural NZ, we relied on the farm for everything. For my four siblings and I, the farm served as our isolated playground. The land also provided for our family and at times we struggled. The weather played a huge part in farm life. It was either a drought or flood, but always a constant source of worry for Dad. If the rains did not come there would be no feed for the animals, if it rained too hard the river would flood, the livestock would surely die ... either way, disaster would ensue.
Looking back It was a blissful childhood. I wanted to make this body of work about some significant memories surrounding that period. In the late 80's, early 90’s due to a mistaken diagnosis and an operation that went wrong we lost a younger sibling. Decisions were made, one after another with a domino effect, each of our lives irrevocably altered. We were forced to cope, each of us in their own way. The thing about rural NZ is the sense of community. The death of a family member and then soon after the loss of our much loved neighbour and close friend, in a tragic car accident left a scar in the small tightly knit community. Mistakes had been made that changed the course of many lives.
When I returned to NZ last year I photographed that same landscape I had grown up in, sometimes from the car window on a rainy day, seemingly insignificant scenes. I discovered a box full of photographs from the South Island I had taken many years before. Borrowing imagery from old photographs, I was ultimately able to mirror just a partial or fleeting glimpse of the truth of the reality.
The final work in this series was inspired by an old photograph of Lake Pukaki 'Transgressions' a notable work for its sense of tranquillity, that reflects the past with a sense of nostalgic clarity. Traces of smouldering fires in the far background, trees barely noticeable. The NZ landscape remains constant, weighted, always there to ground you. The rain keeps coming, it seems relentless some days, then it brightens, and you are left standing there, in my case just at the kitchen window, in awe of its beauty. I look back at the past with a renewed with a sense of acceptance.
Breaking some compositional rules, I wanted the body of work to be more about a memory. The old lace curtain draws the viewer through the veiled panes of glass into Romantic landscapes. Embracing the chance effect of the painting process I have attempted to reflect the past or just the atmosphere of a passing moment. Blurred mid-tones, an absence of vibrancy, a layered and muted palette highlight the effect that passing time has upon ones most significant memories of a place or time.
1. The five of us … I grew up in rural New Zealand. We spent every summer at a coastal settlement called Waverley where my parents owned a small cosy beach property. The five of us played through the endless summers on the cliffs at the beach… it was bliss.
2. The Secret … On our isolated farm the five of us had only each other to play with, but we played in an infinite landscape. One day my brother took my father’s loaded gun and narrowly missed shooting my sister. Then he hid for hours in the rafters of the shed.
3. The Diagnosis … Years later our doctor made a mistake, and the misdiagnosis changed everything. The doctor’s white chair toppling from the ledge at the top of this artwork represents his verdict. Other chairs sit precariously on the ledge. Us.
4. Low Level Cloud ... The low-level weightless cloud formations of my flirtation with a cult hover over a dystopian landscape. This work depicts religious euphoria .... The illusory clouds catch the white chair for a moment before it crashes to the ground.
5. The Long Drive Home … The blurred details in this work represent the truth lost. Moments rush by … the storm collides with the windscreen ... the flurry of rain blurs our vision.
6. Shifting Landscape… On a rainy day, the car window reveals a South Island landscape. I was about 21 ... hitch-hiking with a friend from Dunedin to Christchurch. Some intoxicated guy picked us up along the way. He pulled the car over, jumped out to look at the view and said, ‘I love the sea - it’s free and unpredictable kinda like me.’ Looking back, we probably shouldn’t have got in that car ...
7. The Accident ...Blurred details, unreal moments… this work is a version of the photographic truth of the shock and the pain.
8. Slow Departure - I ignored the rules of composition in this landscape where time stands still, hoping to capture the reality of the moment. We all bring the rules of our own reality to a landscape, and that shifts our visual and emotional experience of the place.
9. Phantom Limb ... After an amputation, areas of the spinal cord and brain lose input from the missing limb and adjust to this detachment in unpredictable ways. The result can trigger the body's most basic message that something is not right: pain. After experiencing loss - loss of person ... loss of landscape - we experience a feeling of unease, a feeling left behind by something that has passed away. An absent presence.
10. The Party ... Simple story: a party; the morning after.
11. The Drought … Every summer the inevitability of the drought stared us in the face. The impending doom reminded us of how we would suffer if the rain didn’t come. It always seemed to just miss the border of our property, and then, every year, down it came. And the summer ended. But we weren’t all there to see the next rain.
12. The day of the Fire ... Arsonists burnt down an old meat processing plant in my town. Strong southerly winds carried the smoke and asbestos across town.
13. The Decision ... I resisted the rules of composition and perspective in this picturesque, postcard landscape. The placement of the tree in the foreground stands as a captured moment of contemplation. I gaze out the kitchen window onto the horizontal layers of landscape - a landscape that consoles and confronts.
14. View to the Valley ... The curtain draws the viewer through veiled panes of glass into this Romanesque landscape reminiscent of those of the 18th century Romantics. Here is the glory, the awe, and the terror found in nature, none of which surround me as I wake daily among the endless apartment blocks of the industrial cities of Asia.
15. Transgressions ... I am irrevocably tied, grounded in, born of the New Zealand landscape. It isolates, confronts and consoles me as I stand in its vast embrace. I am confronted by my own insignificance in the presence of the sublime.