July 2022 Seminar
- Linda Gilbert
- Aug 31, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2023
For the July 2022 Seminar I presented 23 small works. I also wrote a poem about unseen earth energies of magnetism and diamagnetism.
Some of the small works I made spoke of magnetic fields that originate in the outer molten core. They swoop up and through all that is on the Earth, out into space. These magnetic fields form the magnetosphere which protects the planet from harmful solar storms.
Other works related to diamagnetism, found in limestone. Limestone does not interact with magnetic fields, and in some cases it can make a weak negative field in response.
For me, magnetic fields offer a pull energy, while limestone might be described as a push energy. They can be viewed as binaries.
Limestone is sometimes called fizzy rock. In the presence of acidic water such as rain or a stream it literally fizzes and gives off carbon dioxide. The word 'zizz!' is appropriated from, and a nod to, Len Lye. He would use the word to describe energy, fizz, excitement - the very embodiment of the way he lived his life. This poem is inspired by those ideas.
Fizz and Zizz!
Under her delicate green skin
Unseen waves and milky seams
Inner and outer polarities
Subterranean creamy calcium bones
Fizz
Calm and soothe
Limestone fields forever
Frantic magic waves
Zizz!
Pierce the cosmic veil
Magnetic fields forever.
The works I exhibited were intended to be viewed as separate small jewels, or perhaps portals for new ways to consider the Earth. The paintings have embossing and a variety of inscriptions on the rock stock surface. Making them small invited a closer, more intimate viewing.
There have been two major shifts in my practice recently. The first is in the way I am working. The second is around integration of the research and feeling more confident about the science that underpins my ideas. Together these have resulted in a looser and more intuitive approach to making.
The works I chose to exhibit represent just 30% of all I had made during this productive period. Domestic space is now integrated with art making space. The work and materials cover the dining room, lounge and often the surfaces in the kitchen. This set up and the size and scale I am working at have allowed me to be constantly surrounded by the work and alert to their needs. During this period, it could be said that my practice has become a series of sketches using rock stock paper. Yet I see each as a singular work in its own right. I am following the work and letting the process of making dictate the outcome.
The concepts and research have also become integrated and embedded. The research around flow states, recent discoveries about a vestigial sense of magneto-reception in humans, along with the fact that limestone is diamagnetic mean I have some answers for questions that were preoccupying the ideas driving my practice.
Now the focus is squarely on the context and the materiality of painting.
As well as automatic drawing with charcoal and painting with acrylic paint,
I use layering, embossing, and erosion techniques to interrogate the rock stock.
Layers become metaphors for the unseen energy of time and geological pressure.
Critically I have found historical and contemporary artists that resonate because they are also drawing and painting abstract, unseen energies on paper. Georgiana Houghton pre-dated Hilma af Klint by 40 years. She was driven by spirits who she believed controlled her making. Her energetic spirit drawings were likened to "tangled threads of coloured wool" by the Daily News when they were exhibited in 1871.
Contemporary New Zealand artists, Kathy Barry and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy work with unseen energies on paper too. The energies that inspire them differ from mine, and while both are abstract artists interested in giving form to the intangible, their mark making is very different from each other. Barry makes geometric drawings. She is interested in quantum physics and other dimensions where time and space fold in on one another.
Smuts-Kennedy is inspired to draw higher energy vibrations that she senses. Her marks are intuitive, energetic and rhythmic. Colour adds to the intensity of each work made with soft pastel on cotton rag paper. The works are hung from brass bars and float off the gallery wall.
These artists are providing a platform where female intuitive responses to energy are finding form and validation through the process of making art. Historically visionary artists have been denigrated, but science is now slowly starting to catch up.
Perhaps the connection we share, viewed through a contemporary lens, is that we are interested in the unconscious and the role of agency in the production of art.
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