The paths less trodden - STALA CONTEMPORARY - Wed 17 Feb - Sat 06 Mar 2021
Catalogue essay
Di Cubitt has been steadily developing her practice in Western Australia for the past ten years or so. Originally from the UK, her work offers a less familiar perception of the local landscape. Working in a studio away from the actual landscape allows her mind to con-strue an understanding of the landscapes beyond the distractions of sunburn, wind and biting insects, and to build a sense of drama in the work. There is a growing gothic atmosphere pervading her work, which reflects a tradition in Australian visual art, seen in the work of Arthur Boyd and more recently, Louise Hearman.
Cubitt’s work comes from the experience of bushwalking, a relax-ing pastime for most, but in the stride of the artist, it is a search for unknown pleasures. The commonly trodden path becomes merely a point of departure for Cubitt. Her painting, Shimmer #2 is a place to step off into strange detours and odd encounters with nature. A rock face in Gracetown North #1 gives the impression of surprise – you feel as if you are coming across something for the first time, but bizarrely, also experiencing déjà vu.
How important is the representation of the actual site in her work? Art tourists often feel disappointed when they reach a famous place, Camden Town for instance, and hope to see the wild colours and dynamic movement of an Auerbach painting, but instead see only some dull buildings. The imagination and transformation the artist delivered is often not present in the actual site. In Cubitt’s work, the atmosphere of the landscape is frequently intensified by an indigo cast. The work shows a density in the depiction of scrub that is another point of difference to lightness of the Western Australian landscape painting tradition. Her attention to detail enhances the idea that these are real places, but her palette makes the viewer question this at the same time. While the depiction of the site seems authentic, it is not directly naturalistic.
Cubitt’s work veers further off track in the powerful painting Reef. It has a hallucinatory quality as if watching a Bill Viola video and feeling confused as to whether you are dreaming or imagining the experience. It is as though the artist viewed an overwhelming reef image while still being inland.
When full colour seeps into works like Pool, it is riding on the back of chiaroscuro and Cubitt’s own rigorous drawing background. The colour seems to permit a temporary way out of the more ominous and surreal atmosphere inherent in the work. It allows the feeling that you can go home now, back to the city, and the luscious night-mare of the landscape is over. But is it over? You can turn away from these works, but it is difficult to forget them. The heightened experience of Cubitt’s dense landscapes is with you everywhere now, from the chaos glimpsed in the stains on the neighbour’s wall to the things you imagine as you fall asleep.
Dr Kevin Robertson
Dr Kevin Robertson is an artist represented by the Art Col-lective WA and a sessional academic at Curtin University. www.kevinrobertson.org
I acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation on whose lands this exhibition takes place.
I pay my respects to all Indigenous custodians of the lands I have had the pleasure of spending time in across Australia.