My painting has been following a dynamic of its own for the past couple of years. I well remember when my art history teacher at TAFE asked when I was going to move on from works based on family history and the Hawkesbury River and I had to say I did not know. My painting then was one aspect of my auto-ethnography. I wanted to reflect on the past through writing and painting. I am still writing various elements of that story. For some reason the visual field fits into photography rather than painting. I have never once painted a decent picture of the Hawkesbury but I am enthusiastic the photos.
Many of the river photos are on my Images site.
http://annettehamiltonimages.com
A recurrent theme is “Seven Valleys”. These are landscapes painted in and around the valleys of the Blue Mountains, especially the Hawkesbury Sandstone areas leading into the eroding stone formations of the Capertee and Wolgan Valleys. The past and present here reflect the intersection between the use of the land as pasture and rural activity on the one hand and the “wild” untouched stone formations, mountains. The indigenous past is ever-present and I am seeking to find ways to represent that without using conventional signs and symbols.
So far I have mainly worked in the Megalong, Hartley and Capertee Valleys. Each has its own qualities in terms of shape, light and palette. Plus there are vistas along Cox’s River towards Jenolan Caves.
My fascination with deserts was revived following a visit to Broken Hill with my daughter. This was a short trip at the end of a fearful drought. There was limited water in town and the air was full of metal dust that made me cough for a week. The pictures I have painted from that trip reflect the depth of shimmering colour of the far interior and the limitless unfolding of space itself leading west to the Central Desert where I spent formative years in the early 1970s.
As far as approach and technique is concerned, apart from works on canvas in acrylic and oils I also like working on paper with different media. Most of my oils begin with varying sizes of monochrome sketches in graphite and/or gouache and coloured inks on paper. I like working on A3 on heavy-weight water-colour paper.
Multi-media paper allows for the use of solvent based markers which I experiment with at times, although they don’t feel as comfortable as paint on a brush (or palette knife).
A current project is a reconsideration of Australian landscape painting. I am especially interested in the development of outdoor painters in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (“Heidelberg” and others) and their heritage today. Although this style of painting is no longer fashionable, there are still artists from this tradition, some offering invaluable workshops. I do not want to paint in this very distinctive style myself but benefit so much from experiencing their approaches.
Annette Hamilton - ArtIst 