"LAND / MARKS"
"An exploration of the organic nature of landscape and the marks man makes
upon it."
Exhibition opens 6.30pm Friday 19th July.
Jayes invites you to meet the artist and join us for dinner after the opening. Bookings for dinner essential, please phone 02 6366 8810 to secure your place.
Joy Engelman is a very collectible leading senior
Australian artist with a well developed career in the arts spanning all of her
lifetime. Highly awarded in Australia for her works, Joy has also received
international recognition and many invitations overseas. Engelman's work was
purchased by the Dept of Climate Change in 2007 and the work is currently
displayed at Parliament House in the Corporate Rooms of the Prime
Minister's Office. We are pleased to be the regional NSW representatives for
Joy's artworks and invite you to contact us for further information.
Artists Statement:
My works aim, not for a European accepted sensibility but rather to unsettle
the viewer, to unnerve the post-colonial mind of us, the 'settlers' and invite
discussion of just 'what we are becoming'.
Mapping the organic patterns of the landscape together with an exploration of
the marks of civilisation, allows connections to develop, and be understood.
From agriculture to mining, waterways to cities, mankind is now locked in an
increasing race with nature. Taking precious and finite elements from the
natural world, we consume and dispose of these products by burying or
dumping them back into the same environment, an unsustainable practice.
Despite 'settling' in Australia, and declaring our 'superiority', we stand by and
cheer on the rape and pillage of the oldest and most sacred of landscapes. I
am continually amazed and concerned by the number of roads, fence lines,
cattle yards, dams, ploughed fields, mining infrastructures etc that lay on top
of the land. They appear as a layer of 'marks' that bear no regard or
connection to the organic abstract layer of the natural flow of the ancient
landscape beneath them. We continue to have 200 years on from settlement,
a perilous disregard and lack of understanding of how the Australian land
works. We continue to impose European practices on this fragile land.
Growing up and living on an orchard, I connected deeply with the earth.
Inspired by the way indigenous artists 'see', I too want to fly and map this
place - but my love of Australia, even as a 'whitey' is continually affronted as I
find I am out of step with a greedy blind culture with a voracious appetite. I
can only express my concern through my art.
I want to challenge the idea of 'peaceful settlement' and instead express the
feeling that we have 'fallen asleep' in a modern society and this 'sleep' is
perilous.
The Australian landscape is my 'home' and it both delights my senses and
saddens me. Quite often as I view the large gaping wounds on Mother Earth, I
get quite depressed. These works are my way of externalising these worries.
