Australian painting education kit:
Janet Dawson
born Australia 1935
In an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 August 1977, Dawson
related her experience of country living and its effects on her art:
One becomes less interested in naturalism. The country is so
beautiful that there is no way I want to record it as it looks superficially. It has (to)
come through sideways.
Balgalal 1975
synthetic polymer paint on canvas (two panels)
182.5 x 243.0 cm (overall)
Purchased with the assistance of the Visual Arts Board, Australia Council 1976
Historical Context
During the 1960s a number of alternative lifestyle groups such as the
women's movement, gay liberation, environmental groups and the
New Left were formed. These became incorporated into society at large
and contributed to the evolution of the personal-political message of
the '70s. In the early 1970s a number of significant social and political
changes occurred which affected the development of art in Australia.
The country was politically divided over Australia's involvement in the Vietnam
war which resulted in large scale moratoriums in major capital cities.
The change to Labor Government with Gough Whitlam as leader put an end
to conscription and led to the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The recession and
increased unemployment contributed to the right wing political shift highlighted
by the sacking of the Whitlam government in 1975.
The emergence of feminism or Women's Liberation as a key political movement
of the 1970s also contributed to the formation of the Women's Art Movement in
Sydney and Women's Art Register in Melbourne in 1975. This year was
declared by United Nations as the International Year for Women.
Studies of a dancer 1955-56
pen and ink and pencil
24.2 x 26.1 cm
Purchased 1956
Background
From a young age Dawson had an interest in art. She studied at the Gallery School,
Melbourne, from 1952 to 1956. In 1956 she was awarded the Travelling Scholarship
which took her to the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Assisted by a Boise Scholarship
from the Slade, she travelled and worked in Italy, then as an unpaid student helper
she extended her skills in printmaking at Atelier Patris, Paris. She returned to Melbourne
in 1961 and since then has had a varied career in the arts. In 1974 she moved to
a property on the Balgalal Creek, at Binalong, New South Wales.
Influence
From an extensive study of art, biased towards a traditional academic approach, both
in Melbourne and London, Dawson gained a fundamental understanding of drawing
and tonal realist painting techniques. From this solid background she was well placed
to take an experimental approach to her printmaking and painting. Just prior to her
return to Melbourne she saw two important exhibitions in London - Jackson Pollock
and The New American Art. These exhibitions inspired her and helped to define
the future direction of her art. Pollock and Willem de Kooning impressed her with
their use of brush marks as expressive and powerful gestures, and Mark Rothko,
Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb showed her how pure colour could be highly
expressive and emotive.
Technique and Materials
Dawson is more than technically competent in the skills of drawing, printmaking,
theatre set design and tonal realist portrait painting. However she regards them
as subsidiary to her main painting interests. Her paintings vary a great deal in size,
shape, painting medium, painting technique and subject. She is inspired by nature,
but her large nature paintings are studio works.
The Painting
Balgalal goes beyond a superficial view of nature. The painting presents an
enclosed vision of thickly grouped river-gum trunks where light flickers through the
gum-leaf canopy above, to create colourful patterns of light on the mottled bark of the
tree trunks. But the painting leads us beyond this interpretation through
its many ambiguities or paradoxes.
The two-panelled painting can be read as one work, since it is united by similar colour.
However the work can be interpreted as two separate entities, since the forms in the
left panel are considerably larger than those in the right panel. Within this panel, form
and space are contradictory; it is difficult to interpret how many solid tree trunks there are.
Whatever lines make up the trunks, with space behind, can also be read vice versa,
with the spaces becoming the forms. In the left panel there is less spatial ambiguity
because the large trunk, placed diagonally in foreground, overlaps the tree(s)
and space behind.
The painting depicts the specific effects of light flickering onto the tree forms, thereby
recording the atmosphere and characteristics of the locale - Balgalal Creek. The work
could also be seen as being a painterly analysis of light for its own sake, with the tree
forms relegated almost to insignificance. Viewed as such it perhaps offers a more
generalized statement about light in the Australian bush.
Just as the painting can be seen as a realistic portrayal of a thick forest of tree trunks,
it can also be read as an abstract work revealing vivid colour patterns. The paint is
applied in a fresh, vigorous and vertical manner, with control being exercised only by
the broad strokes that form the vertical and slanting lines, which seem to contradict
the expressive
Considerations
- Complete the visual analysis worksheet using Balgalal.
- Janet Dawson stated that the Women's Movement gave her a new confidence
'to accept the essential sensibility which forms the basis of her art'. Discuss this
in relation to Balgalal. Use your response from visual analysis worksheet.
- Compare this painting to the work of Lesley Dumbrell and Jenny Watson from
the same time. Select one painting by each artist for analysis.
- Dawson was involved with printmaking in Australia and overseas. Compare this
painting to the printmaking completed by the artist at Gallery A in Sydney.
- By the mid-1960's Hard-Edge and Colour Field painting were becoming established
in Australia culminating in The Field exhibition of 1968 at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Compare this work to at least two other artists' work from this time.
- Research the influence of the Colour Field and Hard-Edge painters in her work.
- Discuss this painting in relation to a previous work of Dawson.
- Compare this painting to a later work such as Last Foxy Night 1979.
- Dawson also designed and painted sets for theatrical productions. Research the
set designs completed by the artist.
- In 1973 Dawson was awarded the Archibald Prize for a portrait of her husband
Michael Boddy. Research the work of two other artists who also won this prize.
