CASE STUDY ONE - NATURE
SYLLABUS FOCUS: Conceptual Framework
In this chapter we look at artists who have interpreted their world (Conceptual Framework) mainly from the Cultural Frame.
Land (and our relationships with it) has a profound effect on humanity. It offers sustenance and shelter overwhelms with its beauty and terror, and has links to spirituality. Australian artists have always had a special affinity with the land, expressing a strong sense of place. Early colonial artists tried to record its distinctive character and vastness. Artists from the Heidelberg School interpreted it from a Modernist viewpoint while seeking to identify a national image. Indigenous artists have responded to the land from a spiritual perspective and through their personal connection and attachment to place.
Contemporary artists using a variety of forms continue to explore nature. Through their artworks they investigate issues such as scientific and historical classification and control, medical uses of plants, links to culture, introduced species, threats to species due to urbanisation and global warming, and natural life cycles.
Technology has also enabled contemporary artists to investigate the
transitory aspects of nature, such as melting, dissolving and decaying through
the elements of fire and water as well as time.
In this chapter we look at artists who have interpreted their world (Conceptual Framework) mainly from the Cultural Frame.
Land (and our relationships with it) has a profound effect on humanity. It offers sustenance and shelter overwhelms with its beauty and terror, and has links to spirituality. Australian artists have always had a special affinity with the land, expressing a strong sense of place. Early colonial artists tried to record its distinctive character and vastness. Artists from the Heidelberg School interpreted it from a Modernist viewpoint while seeking to identify a national image. Indigenous artists have responded to the land from a spiritual perspective and through their personal connection and attachment to place.
Contemporary artists using a variety of forms continue to explore nature. Through their artworks they investigate issues such as scientific and historical classification and control, medical uses of plants, links to culture, introduced species, threats to species due to urbanisation and global warming, and natural life cycles.
Technology has also enabled contemporary artists to investigate the
transitory aspects of nature, such as melting, dissolving and decaying through
the elements of fire and water as well as time.
Eugène von Guérard
(1811–1901, b. Vienna, Australian colonial artist)
Issues/interests: landscape, a sense of place, the beauty and grandeur
of God's creation
Form: oil painting on canvas
Frames: Cultural in depictions of the uniqueness and sense of
space of the Australian landscape; Structural in his use of symbols, such
as hovering birds and rays of sunlight as symbols of God's presence, and
kangaroos and Aboriginal figures as symbols of cultural identity. He followed
the codes and conventions of the Romantic European tradition, adapting them to
the Australian landscape. He shows great concern for detail and the wide view,
and establishing distance through perspective devices.
Conceptual Framework: Von Guérard's work reflects the values, theories
and beliefs of his time, which helped shape the way he interpreted what he
saw.
The panoramic North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863 (below) shows the view from the top of Australia's highest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko. Although the view feels timeless, the inclusion of the human figures gives it a historical context. It records a scientific expedition von Guérard joined on 1st November 1863 (his fiftieth birthday) with a scientist and a small group of his assistants. At this time, many artists were trained as scientists or worked with them. It was widely believed that both science and art were ways of understanding and making a closer connection with God. As God created nature, it was important for scientists to study nature and for artists to represent its beauty, capturing every detail of pebble, cloud or leaf.
North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863
oil on canvas
66.5 × 116.8 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
(below)
Issues/interests: landscape, a sense of place, the beauty and grandeur
of God's creation
Form: oil painting on canvas
Frames: Cultural in depictions of the uniqueness and sense of
space of the Australian landscape; Structural in his use of symbols, such
as hovering birds and rays of sunlight as symbols of God's presence, and
kangaroos and Aboriginal figures as symbols of cultural identity. He followed
the codes and conventions of the Romantic European tradition, adapting them to
the Australian landscape. He shows great concern for detail and the wide view,
and establishing distance through perspective devices.
Conceptual Framework: Von Guérard's work reflects the values, theories
and beliefs of his time, which helped shape the way he interpreted what he
saw.
The panoramic North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863 (below) shows the view from the top of Australia's highest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko. Although the view feels timeless, the inclusion of the human figures gives it a historical context. It records a scientific expedition von Guérard joined on 1st November 1863 (his fiftieth birthday) with a scientist and a small group of his assistants. At this time, many artists were trained as scientists or worked with them. It was widely believed that both science and art were ways of understanding and making a closer connection with God. As God created nature, it was important for scientists to study nature and for artists to represent its beauty, capturing every detail of pebble, cloud or leaf.
North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863
oil on canvas
66.5 × 116.8 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
(below)
Although von Guérard drew sketches on the mountain, this painting was produced back in his studio. He recorded the experiences he had on that day, including the impending storm coming in from the left of the painting. He interpreted the landscape through his own individual perception of nature — its sublime beauty,
grandeur and potential for danger or terror. His interest in the sublime aspects
of nature is evident in his depiction of the majestic mountains and the mood of
the sky. The human figures not only place it historically but act as a compositional device to create a sense of scale. Dwarfed by their surroundings (at first glance they are hardly noticed), the figures attest to the magnitude and power of nature. This work exhibits von Guérard's meticulous style — the
painstaking detail in the foreground against the broad, rhythmical sweeps of the middle ground and distance.
It is interesting to look at a Postmodern appropriation of this work by Imants Tillers titled Mount Analogue 1985.
In the painting Mt William from Mt Dryden, Victoria (see below), von Guérard reverses normal expectations of left-to-right movement, forcing the eyes to travel diagonally back into space. We also see how he uses symbols to add layers of meaning to his paintings: the bird hovering above the mountain both draws attention to it and adds a spiritual dimension to the work. The glow of the sun behind the mountain adds to the splendour and
drama of the scene.
We appreciate von Guérard's interest in art and beauty, and in how art can heighten the viewer's awareness and appreciation of nature. The kangaroos in the foreground help locate it as an Australian landscape, as well
as providing a reference point to establish the scale of the mountains. The delicate light enhances the majestic forms of the mountains and casts shadows over the valley, occasionally highlighting the curve of tree trunks and the texture of the foliage. The sense of harmony and tranquillity reflect von Guérard's deep reverence for nature.
Mt William from Mt Dryden, Victoria 1857
oil on canvas
76.2 × 106 × 7 cm (framed)
State Art Collection Art Gallery of Western Australia
Purchased 1971
(above)
grandeur and potential for danger or terror. His interest in the sublime aspects
of nature is evident in his depiction of the majestic mountains and the mood of
the sky. The human figures not only place it historically but act as a compositional device to create a sense of scale. Dwarfed by their surroundings (at first glance they are hardly noticed), the figures attest to the magnitude and power of nature. This work exhibits von Guérard's meticulous style — the
painstaking detail in the foreground against the broad, rhythmical sweeps of the middle ground and distance.
It is interesting to look at a Postmodern appropriation of this work by Imants Tillers titled Mount Analogue 1985.
In the painting Mt William from Mt Dryden, Victoria (see below), von Guérard reverses normal expectations of left-to-right movement, forcing the eyes to travel diagonally back into space. We also see how he uses symbols to add layers of meaning to his paintings: the bird hovering above the mountain both draws attention to it and adds a spiritual dimension to the work. The glow of the sun behind the mountain adds to the splendour and
drama of the scene.
We appreciate von Guérard's interest in art and beauty, and in how art can heighten the viewer's awareness and appreciation of nature. The kangaroos in the foreground help locate it as an Australian landscape, as well
as providing a reference point to establish the scale of the mountains. The delicate light enhances the majestic forms of the mountains and casts shadows over the valley, occasionally highlighting the curve of tree trunks and the texture of the foliage. The sense of harmony and tranquillity reflect von Guérard's deep reverence for nature.
Mt William from Mt Dryden, Victoria 1857
oil on canvas
76.2 × 106 × 7 cm (framed)
State Art Collection Art Gallery of Western Australia
Purchased 1971
(above)
In Spring in the Valley of the Mitta Mitta (below) a peaceful landscape is enriched by the compositional decisions made by the artist, particularly his chosen viewpoint. The boulders in the foreground are our starting point, leading us through the trees to the river and on to the valley below. The trees on either side of the foreground frame the vista. The patch of light catching the diagonal slope of the foreground adds movement and interest. The inclusion of the horse and rider gives the painting a narrative aspect and historical context, and there are hints of dogs and sheep in the first line of trees.
Typically, von Guérard has chosen a wide view with majestic ranges in the background. We appreciate the sense of distance he creates and his skill in rendering mountains, but despite his attention to detail of the foliage, the colour of the trees suggests European varieties rather than our own grey-green gums. Artists of the Heidelberg School (Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton) in the 1890s were the first to fully appreciate our native trees and plants and the way the sun bleached colour from the landscape.
Historical background
Through the work of von Guérard we are able to plot the development of colonial art, considering such issues as parochialism, isolation and European tradition. This can help us shed light on our cultural heritage, sense of place and search for national identity. We see in Australia a colonial outpost, where artists were influenced by European styles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Eugène von Guérard began his artistic training in Italy and went on to studylandscape painting in Germany. In his work we can see the influence of the seventeenth-century artistic traditions of Claude Lorraine and Salvatore Rosa (the enchanted landscape inspired by Italian myths and the poetry of nature in Virgil). We can also see the influence of the German Romantic tradition of the early nineteenth century, in which the powerful arrangement of forms signified God's organisation of nature. The work of Caspar David Friedrich also follows
this tradition. The Romantic view of nature held that through the silent contemplation of the landscape, man could embrace the universe, and so find God. By glorifying nature, artists were also glorifying God. The accuracy of von Guérard's observations and rendering of surfaces reveals his dedication to creating beauty and spiritual meaning.
Von Guérard contributed to the movement away from the English landscape tradition (still evident, for example, in the paintings of John Glover).
The landscape as subject was of profound importance in the formation of the Australian identity. Von Guérard provided a unique interpretation of our heritage. He was primarily a recorder of the Australian landscape as wilderness. However, his work goes beyond merely recording place. He painted the larger view of nature, encompassing evaporation and precipitation, the death and regeneration of plants and trees, the cycles of
agriculture and the effects of civilisation.
Artist's practice
Von Guérard was primarily an artist but also an explorer. Combining theseroles, he spent months trekking in Australia and New Zealand, seeking breathtaking panoramic views of a landscape unknown to most Europeans. From his trips he brought back sketchbooks filled with finely detailed pencil drawings, which he later used as the basis for paintings that expressed nature as he remembered it. He sometimes drew larger sketches that included his observations of colour and light. He can therefore be appreciated as a topographical artist who studied and recorded the new land realistically and in fine detail. He was also an observer of European settlement in Australia and its impact on nature and the Indigenous people.
Von Guérard's artworks are a reflection of his responses to the beauty of particular places, especially landscapes. He makes us aware of the different textures and surfaces of vegetation, trees and rocky outcrops with almost scientific accuracy. He also appreciated and understood the way light is reflected in water and glows on and through clouds.
Historical practice
‘Von Guérard had patrons among the Western District pastoralists who, as well as commissioning homestead portraits, asked for landscape views. Having built grand country houses and produced families that were growing up in this new country (though often educated in England), the squatters had begun to look towards a probable future in Australia and to feel a proprietorial interest in the country they had settled. The many poetic images of the Western District by von Guérard … fed this newly proud identification with the land … Moreover the combination of scientific description and the poetry of divine power was understood and appreciated.’
Mary Eagle and John Jones, A Story of Australian Painting, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 1994, pp. 52, 55, 56.
Critical practice
‘In addition to the painting's formal compositional devices such as the trinity of large trees through which we see a water-laden plain, the triangle of eagle, kangaroos and fox, the “magic” circle of boulders, and the pale clouds echoing the dark foliage, it is the ordered zones of texture and an overall transparency monochromaticism which appeal to me …
‘In Mount William from Mount Dryden von Guérard marries, perhaps a little uneasily, the finely realised appearance of the landscape with a personal, symbolic narrative, together with a vision of infinite
space.’
Brian Blanchflower, ‘Artist's Choice No. 34: Eugène von Guérard: Mount William from Mount Dryden’, in Art and
Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, Autumn 1988, p. 384.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Cultural Frame — Historical Practice
Refer to Mt William from Mt Dryden (Eugène von Guérard) and the historical information provided below to evaluate the artist's significance to Australian culture.
The painting was purchased by John Blakewell, part owner of a wool sorting business. It was reproduced twice in contemporary journals of the time and received lavish praise for von Guérard's skill and delicate warm feeling as well as his handling of the gum trees. In 1870 von Guérard became the curator of the
Melbourne Gallery and first master of the painting school at the National Gallery of Victoria, where his students included Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Rupert Bunny.
SAMPLE SHORT RESPONSE
Conceptual Framework
Explain how von Guérard interprets his world with reference to one of his artworks.
(Written in 10 minutes under examination conditions)
Von Guérard's North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863 uses oil paints in a large-scale work to create an aesthetic, realistic view of the untouched wilderness. It is a picturesque representation of the grandeur of the Australian landscape. By adopting a high viewpoint, the artist has captured a sense of the vastness and endlessness of the landscape. The rich purples and oranges and lush greens, matched with the brutality of the rocks and the blankness of the white snow, capture a natural beauty that changes with the
time of day and weather conditions. The billowing rainclouds entering from the left create dark shadows over the foreground, the crisp greys and blues suggesting the cool temperatures of the area. The inclusion of the human figures signals both the sense of isolation and the peacefulness of the scene, while also highlighting the vastness of the mountain.
Explains the devices and art techniques used by von Guérard to interpret his world (‘realistic view’, ‘high viewpoint’, ‘rich purples’). Composition is considered, as is the mood created.
Typically, von Guérard has chosen a wide view with majestic ranges in the background. We appreciate the sense of distance he creates and his skill in rendering mountains, but despite his attention to detail of the foliage, the colour of the trees suggests European varieties rather than our own grey-green gums. Artists of the Heidelberg School (Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton) in the 1890s were the first to fully appreciate our native trees and plants and the way the sun bleached colour from the landscape.
Historical background
Through the work of von Guérard we are able to plot the development of colonial art, considering such issues as parochialism, isolation and European tradition. This can help us shed light on our cultural heritage, sense of place and search for national identity. We see in Australia a colonial outpost, where artists were influenced by European styles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Eugène von Guérard began his artistic training in Italy and went on to studylandscape painting in Germany. In his work we can see the influence of the seventeenth-century artistic traditions of Claude Lorraine and Salvatore Rosa (the enchanted landscape inspired by Italian myths and the poetry of nature in Virgil). We can also see the influence of the German Romantic tradition of the early nineteenth century, in which the powerful arrangement of forms signified God's organisation of nature. The work of Caspar David Friedrich also follows
this tradition. The Romantic view of nature held that through the silent contemplation of the landscape, man could embrace the universe, and so find God. By glorifying nature, artists were also glorifying God. The accuracy of von Guérard's observations and rendering of surfaces reveals his dedication to creating beauty and spiritual meaning.
Von Guérard contributed to the movement away from the English landscape tradition (still evident, for example, in the paintings of John Glover).
The landscape as subject was of profound importance in the formation of the Australian identity. Von Guérard provided a unique interpretation of our heritage. He was primarily a recorder of the Australian landscape as wilderness. However, his work goes beyond merely recording place. He painted the larger view of nature, encompassing evaporation and precipitation, the death and regeneration of plants and trees, the cycles of
agriculture and the effects of civilisation.
Artist's practice
Von Guérard was primarily an artist but also an explorer. Combining theseroles, he spent months trekking in Australia and New Zealand, seeking breathtaking panoramic views of a landscape unknown to most Europeans. From his trips he brought back sketchbooks filled with finely detailed pencil drawings, which he later used as the basis for paintings that expressed nature as he remembered it. He sometimes drew larger sketches that included his observations of colour and light. He can therefore be appreciated as a topographical artist who studied and recorded the new land realistically and in fine detail. He was also an observer of European settlement in Australia and its impact on nature and the Indigenous people.
Von Guérard's artworks are a reflection of his responses to the beauty of particular places, especially landscapes. He makes us aware of the different textures and surfaces of vegetation, trees and rocky outcrops with almost scientific accuracy. He also appreciated and understood the way light is reflected in water and glows on and through clouds.
Historical practice
‘Von Guérard had patrons among the Western District pastoralists who, as well as commissioning homestead portraits, asked for landscape views. Having built grand country houses and produced families that were growing up in this new country (though often educated in England), the squatters had begun to look towards a probable future in Australia and to feel a proprietorial interest in the country they had settled. The many poetic images of the Western District by von Guérard … fed this newly proud identification with the land … Moreover the combination of scientific description and the poetry of divine power was understood and appreciated.’
Mary Eagle and John Jones, A Story of Australian Painting, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 1994, pp. 52, 55, 56.
Critical practice
‘In addition to the painting's formal compositional devices such as the trinity of large trees through which we see a water-laden plain, the triangle of eagle, kangaroos and fox, the “magic” circle of boulders, and the pale clouds echoing the dark foliage, it is the ordered zones of texture and an overall transparency monochromaticism which appeal to me …
‘In Mount William from Mount Dryden von Guérard marries, perhaps a little uneasily, the finely realised appearance of the landscape with a personal, symbolic narrative, together with a vision of infinite
space.’
Brian Blanchflower, ‘Artist's Choice No. 34: Eugène von Guérard: Mount William from Mount Dryden’, in Art and
Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, Autumn 1988, p. 384.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
- An art critic offers opinions but can also help us to appreciate aspects of the artwork and suggest interpretations. What did you learn about von Guérard's painting from the critical review by Brian Blanchflower?
- Cultural Frame — historical practice
Refer to Mt William from Mt Dryden (Eugène von Guérard) and the historical information provided below to evaluate the artist's significance to Australian culture.
The painting was purchased by John Blakewell, part owner of a wool sorting business. It was reproduced twice in contemporary journals of the time and received lavish praise for von Guérard's skill and delicate warm feeling as well as his handling of the gum trees. In 1870 von Guérard became the curator of the Melbourne Gallery and first master of the painting school at the National Gallery of Victoria, where his students included Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Rupert Bunny.
Cultural Frame — Historical Practice
Refer to Mt William from Mt Dryden (Eugène von Guérard) and the historical information provided below to evaluate the artist's significance to Australian culture.
The painting was purchased by John Blakewell, part owner of a wool sorting business. It was reproduced twice in contemporary journals of the time and received lavish praise for von Guérard's skill and delicate warm feeling as well as his handling of the gum trees. In 1870 von Guérard became the curator of the
Melbourne Gallery and first master of the painting school at the National Gallery of Victoria, where his students included Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Rupert Bunny.
SAMPLE SHORT RESPONSE
Conceptual Framework
Explain how von Guérard interprets his world with reference to one of his artworks.
(Written in 10 minutes under examination conditions)
Von Guérard's North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko 1863 uses oil paints in a large-scale work to create an aesthetic, realistic view of the untouched wilderness. It is a picturesque representation of the grandeur of the Australian landscape. By adopting a high viewpoint, the artist has captured a sense of the vastness and endlessness of the landscape. The rich purples and oranges and lush greens, matched with the brutality of the rocks and the blankness of the white snow, capture a natural beauty that changes with the
time of day and weather conditions. The billowing rainclouds entering from the left create dark shadows over the foreground, the crisp greys and blues suggesting the cool temperatures of the area. The inclusion of the human figures signals both the sense of isolation and the peacefulness of the scene, while also highlighting the vastness of the mountain.
Explains the devices and art techniques used by von Guérard to interpret his world (‘realistic view’, ‘high viewpoint’, ‘rich purples’). Composition is considered, as is the mood created.
FIONA HALL
(b. 1953, Australian contemporary artist)
Issues/interests: human and plant life, classifications, opposites
Forms: sculpture, installations
Frames: Postmodern in her use of non-traditional media and methods of display and the way her art challenges yet involves humour;
Cultural — Because she comments on social issues involved with colonialism, trade and world economics, her works are political as well as social comments.
Conceptual Framework: Fiona Hall responds to the world, including its plant life, and to its history, including the colonial obsession with classifying ‘finds’, genetic engineering and global warming. Her works engage
the audience on an emotional as well as a cerebral level. She challenges artwork conventions through her use of non-traditional materials such as sardine tins,
soap and plumbing pipes.
Nelumbo nucifera; nelum (Sinhala); thamareri (Tamil); lotus
1999
From the series Paradisus Terrestris 1999
aluminium and steel
26 × 18 × 4 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Nelumbo nucifera 1999 (see above) is part of a series relating to the place humanity has in earthly nature. Hall has investigated various plant specimens, researching not only their form and growth patterns but also their
botanic classifications and historical medicinal uses. Each piece is named according to the botanical, common and Aboriginal names for the plants. This type of sardine can, with a key to unroll the lid, is no longer produced. At the time, sardines were a commonplace cheap form of food for human consumption. Hall
has transformed this mundane object into works of art through adding intricate plant forms that emerge from the top of the tin and by hinting at an erotic view of the human body. They have not only taken on the luxurious, decorative surfaces of the jeweller's craft but have been imbued with layers of meaning. Through the artist's skill and wit, these everyday, readymade items have become precious artworks that are both aesthetically and intellectually stimulating.
Issues/interests: human and plant life, classifications, opposites
Forms: sculpture, installations
Frames: Postmodern in her use of non-traditional media and methods of display and the way her art challenges yet involves humour;
Cultural — Because she comments on social issues involved with colonialism, trade and world economics, her works are political as well as social comments.
Conceptual Framework: Fiona Hall responds to the world, including its plant life, and to its history, including the colonial obsession with classifying ‘finds’, genetic engineering and global warming. Her works engage
the audience on an emotional as well as a cerebral level. She challenges artwork conventions through her use of non-traditional materials such as sardine tins,
soap and plumbing pipes.
Nelumbo nucifera; nelum (Sinhala); thamareri (Tamil); lotus
1999
From the series Paradisus Terrestris 1999
aluminium and steel
26 × 18 × 4 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Nelumbo nucifera 1999 (see above) is part of a series relating to the place humanity has in earthly nature. Hall has investigated various plant specimens, researching not only their form and growth patterns but also their
botanic classifications and historical medicinal uses. Each piece is named according to the botanical, common and Aboriginal names for the plants. This type of sardine can, with a key to unroll the lid, is no longer produced. At the time, sardines were a commonplace cheap form of food for human consumption. Hall
has transformed this mundane object into works of art through adding intricate plant forms that emerge from the top of the tin and by hinting at an erotic view of the human body. They have not only taken on the luxurious, decorative surfaces of the jeweller's craft but have been imbued with layers of meaning. Through the artist's skill and wit, these everyday, readymade items have become precious artworks that are both aesthetically and intellectually stimulating.
Dead in the Water 1999
(detail)
PVC pipe, glass beads, wire, vitrine
Vitrine dimensions: 106.5 × 128 × 128 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery,
Sydney
Dead in the Water (above) consists of a vitrine cabinet similar to those found in museums; above an imaginary waterline, PVC piping (not a traditional art medium) has been delicately pierced with a pattern of holes. The pipes no longer resemble the ‘masculine’ material used by plumbers but have been transformed into delicate, feminine, lace-like shapes. Hall's work challenges the viewer, reflecting the Postmodern preoccupation with systems of display and classification encoded in Western thinking.
The theme of white preciousness continues beneath the imaginary waterline as the pipes evolve into growing, root-like structures made of finely sewn glass beads. We are reminded of coral and icicles, yet also of beaded evening bags. Hall has continued her theme of exploring values and attitudes through the association of opposites — nature versus humanity, old versus new, good versus evil. There is a sense of mystery; the
contrasting surfaces and textures invite us to look beyond the forms and materials to discover deeper meanings.
Cash Crop 1998–99 (detail)
carved soap, painted banknotes, vitrine
Vitrine dimensions: 115 × 130 × 55 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
In Cash Crop (above) fruit and vegetables have been exquisitely carved from coloured soap, arranged by size and displayed with accompanying classification details. But here is where Hall wittily injects political meaning into the work — for example, a peanut is labelled ‘tax return’ while a runner bean has been classified as ‘venture capital’. Further reference to our consumer culture and volatile, sharemarket-driven economy is made in the vitrine's floor covering of banknotes.
In another work, Understorey, also displayed in a museum case, the three-dimensional objects are made from glass beads, the delicate, luxuriously coloured objects on the top shelf reminding us of tropical flowers and fruit, while those on the lower shelf are given a surface of camouflage patterning, a symbol of hostility and conflict. Understorey brings together two versions of a tropical environment — the lush, pristine jungle of the eighteenth century, and a contemporary view of ongoing civil unrest and displacement of people as a result of land clearance, urbanisation and the effects of colonialism.
Continuing the theme of commerce and money, the Leaf Litter series (see below) consists of 200 highly realistic and detailed gouache paintings of botanically specific leaves on foreign paper currency. Here Hall asks us to
consider the role plants have played in the history of colonisation and the development of the world's economies.
contrasting surfaces and textures invite us to look beyond the forms and materials to discover deeper meanings.
Cash Crop 1998–99 (detail)
carved soap, painted banknotes, vitrine
Vitrine dimensions: 115 × 130 × 55 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
In Cash Crop (above) fruit and vegetables have been exquisitely carved from coloured soap, arranged by size and displayed with accompanying classification details. But here is where Hall wittily injects political meaning into the work — for example, a peanut is labelled ‘tax return’ while a runner bean has been classified as ‘venture capital’. Further reference to our consumer culture and volatile, sharemarket-driven economy is made in the vitrine's floor covering of banknotes.
In another work, Understorey, also displayed in a museum case, the three-dimensional objects are made from glass beads, the delicate, luxuriously coloured objects on the top shelf reminding us of tropical flowers and fruit, while those on the lower shelf are given a surface of camouflage patterning, a symbol of hostility and conflict. Understorey brings together two versions of a tropical environment — the lush, pristine jungle of the eighteenth century, and a contemporary view of ongoing civil unrest and displacement of people as a result of land clearance, urbanisation and the effects of colonialism.
Continuing the theme of commerce and money, the Leaf Litter series (see below) consists of 200 highly realistic and detailed gouache paintings of botanically specific leaves on foreign paper currency. Here Hall asks us to
consider the role plants have played in the history of colonisation and the development of the world's economies.
Leaf Litter 1999–2003 (detail)
Adiantum raddianum, maidenhair fern gouache on banknotes
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
This idea is extended in her artwork Tender 2003–05. Consisting of bird's nests woven from shredded US dollar notes, each bearing the official declaration ‘This note is legal tender’, it draws a connection between the fragility of nature and of economic life. It works on various levels of meaning. As the US dollar is still the most valued currency in many developing countries, it suggests people scavenging for the dollar like a bird scavenging for materials from which to build its nest. One implicationis that we need to consider the price we pay for the unchecked capitalism that underpins our advanced economies — specifically, the destruction of the environment and ever-widening gap between rich and poor nations. In the exhibition information leaflet from the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Hall has challenged us with the question, ‘Money doesn't grow on trees — or does it?’
Cell Culture (below) is one of a series of sculptures exhibited in a large glass display case similar to those used in museums. Hall has created a collection of whimsical creatures and plants using Tupperware containers (plastic storage ware) as the starting point to which she attaches delicate beaded forms. The natural world meets the constructed, consumer world. Amazingly, at first glance they work together as an entity, the
translucent, milky-white plastic complementing the delicate woven structures of glass beads. Hall has cleverly combined an old form of commercial currency (glass beads) with a modern commercial material. Represented
are two systems of trade, socialisation and exchange, objectified and classified as a collection of specimens. The preciousness of the objects is emphasised by the method of display, which suggests a jeweller's case or a museum specimen
case.
Adiantum raddianum, maidenhair fern gouache on banknotes
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
This idea is extended in her artwork Tender 2003–05. Consisting of bird's nests woven from shredded US dollar notes, each bearing the official declaration ‘This note is legal tender’, it draws a connection between the fragility of nature and of economic life. It works on various levels of meaning. As the US dollar is still the most valued currency in many developing countries, it suggests people scavenging for the dollar like a bird scavenging for materials from which to build its nest. One implicationis that we need to consider the price we pay for the unchecked capitalism that underpins our advanced economies — specifically, the destruction of the environment and ever-widening gap between rich and poor nations. In the exhibition information leaflet from the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Hall has challenged us with the question, ‘Money doesn't grow on trees — or does it?’
Cell Culture (below) is one of a series of sculptures exhibited in a large glass display case similar to those used in museums. Hall has created a collection of whimsical creatures and plants using Tupperware containers (plastic storage ware) as the starting point to which she attaches delicate beaded forms. The natural world meets the constructed, consumer world. Amazingly, at first glance they work together as an entity, the
translucent, milky-white plastic complementing the delicate woven structures of glass beads. Hall has cleverly combined an old form of commercial currency (glass beads) with a modern commercial material. Represented
are two systems of trade, socialisation and exchange, objectified and classified as a collection of specimens. The preciousness of the objects is emphasised by the method of display, which suggests a jeweller's case or a museum specimen
case.
Cell Culture 2002 (detail)
glass, metal, PVC, beads in vitrine
Vitrine dimensions: 158.1 × 250.2 × 90.2 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Artist's practice
Background
Fiona Hall is an innovative artist whose work can be admired on an aesthetic level for its delicacy and individual skill. But it is when you investigate a range of her works that you appreciate the force of her social and environmental concerns and her thorough research. It is the diversity of her practice that makes it essential to look at several of her works to appreciate her control of different media and the depth of her recurring concerns.
Hall was trained as a painter, but her career really began with her photographic works in the early 1970s. She began using recycled aluminium in thelate 1980s, cutting into drink cans, rearranging them and photographing them (the Purgatory, Paradise and Hell series and the Word series). With Medicine Bundle from the Non-born Child 1993, Hall used Coca-Cola cans as her medium, creating a rattle and adding rubber nipples to a six-pack of cans as well as knitting a matinee jacket, booties and bonnet out of the shredded cans. This work has social and political undertones, as Coca-Cola originally used the South American coca leaf and the African cola nut, both of which have been used in developing countries for their contraceptive properties.
The associations with American big business commodities and the irony of the harsh, rough handmade garments for the soft newborn leaves us questioning life values.
Intentions
Like many Postmodern artists, Hall is concerned with issues relating to ecology (the interrelationships of organisms in the environment) and, associated with this, the extinction of species. Science, the role of the collector, and the methods of and reasons for display and categorising in museums are also issues that inform her artmaking practice, adding levels of meaning according to the knowledge and understanding of the
audience. Her primary focus is the point where humankind and nature meet — our place and our plight within the world as represented in history and mythology. Hall often juxtaposes forgotten knowledge with artefacts and attributes of contemporary life.
Hall is deeply concerned with the state of the world and the need for us to take responsibility for it, and her works often carry strong social and political messages. She has used plant forms as complex metaphors or symbols for a wide range of issues and interests. In her 1995 commissioned work for the opening of the Museum of Sydney, titled Occupied Territory, Hall used beads, wire and nails, items that were first brought to
the ‘New World’ for trade, to create objects representing the seeds of plants (both native and introduced species), such as fig and banksia, growing in the grounds of the first Government House in Sydney. This work is a comment on the human dependence on nature, and the cultural and environmental consequences of
trade, exploration and location.
Fiona Hall's work encourages us to look beyond its delicate beauty and sensuous surfaces to discover meaning. Her artworks thus reach beyond their poetic and lyrical qualities, their beauty as exquisite, delicate, intricately detailed imaginative creations, to make powerful statements about our time and world. Behind the complex relationships between natural and manufactured objects, the sense of profusion and passion, is an underlying order and serious purpose — to reflect on what we have lost as well as what we may still lose.
They therefore challenge the audience on both an emotional and an intellectual level with their wit and multiple layers of meaning. Through mixing systems of thought as diverse as science, history, religion, horticulture and commerce, she opens up new ways of thinking about the world.
Materials/methods/choices
Hall uses non-traditional materials, mostly expendable and discarded materials, and transforms them into intricate and enticing art objects. She paints, models, carves, sews and assembles discarded items of consumer culture into witty objects and installations. Although her work is not explicitly feminist, her choice and use of materials (such as beading and soap) have feminine connotations. Her work often incorporates materials from the domestic sphere or involves traditional craft or female pursuits (knitting, weaving).
The artist's skill and craft is unmistakable in her work; she employs no assistants in the time-consuming and meticulous production of her works. The attention to detail and concern for precise craftsmanship is always apparent, whether in the fine beading, delicate gouache painting, soap carving, or cutting and manipulation of aluminium.
Hall has also reinvented the garden as an art form, as it was understood in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, although such a view is unusual in contemporary practice. Fern Garden 1998, at the NationalGallery of Australia, Canberra, was her first large-scale garden project. It incorporates tree ferns, curving pathways, fountains, benches, lighting and wrought iron. As is her usual practice, Hall employs a layering of meaning and use of symbols. The spiralling pathways suggest an opening palm frond. The
overall plan and wrought-iron gates refer to nineteenth-century medical drawings of the female reproductive system. The fern is one of our most ancient plants and provided food for Aboriginal peoples. In the main path, pavers contain an Aboriginal name for the fern together with the language group to which it belongs. Also mentioned is Destiny Deacon, an artist friend of Hall's, and the twins Deuchar and Tasmin Davy (they died in a light plane crash), whose family helped fund the project. The use of the medium of plants was carried into her
temporary work Gene Pool, erected at Government House using some of the most ancient plant species still in existence. In this work Hall challenged the viewer to consider the processes by which nature has been tamed and changed by human activities, and at the same time to review humanity's survivability through adaptation to change as a result of colonisation.
Display
Hall plays with the idea of displacement, of bringing into the art gallery or museum unfamiliar materials and forms that break art traditions, and challenging audiences to reconsider these materials and techniques, and their history and significance to cultural practices. She is intrigued and perplexed by the processes of naming things in the natural world and how institutions order and categorise their knowledge. The naming of her works, the labelling of the plant species and the symbols used trigger various levels of awareness.
Main concerns
In her exhibition Force Field at the MCA 2008, a survey of her work from the 1970s to 2008, Hall's art was organised according to her main series or phases, which range from the intimate to the global. In summary, they are:
Artist's statements
‘I tend to choose materials already loaded with meaning … Having selected a medium, I then devise a way to make it take on the forms I want, so my work usually ends up looking highly crafted.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 19.
‘As soon as you make a work it becomes history. That is something I am aware of. The media I use seem to have their time and then they go very rapidly. Videotape is now obsolete. Within a few years of my first sardine tins in the early 1990s, the tins with the old-style keys were replaced with ring-pull tins. Banknotes are being replaced increasingly by plastic transactions.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 41.
‘In my art I am finding ways of bringing together the astounding, magical, uplifting world with the very sobering realisation that we are putting that world in peril.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 46.
‘Perhaps the ongoing exploration, the systematic working through of ideas and reaching out for different approaches and so on is the epic voyage.’
Quoted in Tim Morrel and Jim Moss, ‘Fiona Hall’, Photofile, Summer 1988–89, p. 27.
Critical practice
‘[Fiona Hall] seems incapable of making work that doesn't endear [make attractive] itself to the viewer — even if the viewer doesn't “get it” … Hall makes beautiful objects — in the case of Dead in the Water, mutant fusions of porous pipes and underwater flora suspended in glass vitrines. Her materials are eccentric, but obscurely suggestive: glass beads, PVC pipe, mother-of-pearl buttons. Hall has just finished a residency at Brisbane's
Botanic Gardens, where she pursued her interest in economic botany. Cash Crop — a sort of inventory of commodity plant life — is the clearest expression of her research: it lines up life-sized models of seeds, fruit and roots carved from yellow soap with punning phrases borrowed from economic jargon: seaweed gets “offshore trading”; the cola nut gets “global liquidity”; coffee gets “consumption level” and so on. It's very witty, very likeable …’
Sebastian Smee, ‘Concepts take root’,
Galleries, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 1999, p. 15.
While voicing his opinion of Hall's work, Smee also provides us with valuable information on the variety and uniqueness of her material practice.
‘The complex, ingenious, labour-intensive artworks made by Fiona Hall arouse great wonder, delight, incredulity [unwillingness to believe] and thoughtfulness in the viewer …
‘The intensity of Hall's making is never about craft, in the sense of serving a craft or tradition or skill. Rather there is a sense that she invents ways of doing things, of combining materials and techniques in order to strike the viewer with a freshness, an exclamation of wonder that will make them see afresh the combinations and juxtapositions of material and intellectual languages that she combines. Her soap carvings for Cash Crop (1998), carvings that can be worn away by water, carvings that are fragrant with soap scents, juxtapose
seeds with terms from the world of trade and finance.’
Stephanie Radock, ‘Fiona Hall’, Artlink, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 48, 51.
‘Fiona Hall imbues her work with the thrill of discovery, inviting the viewer to share her excitement … On even the briefest acquaintance with her work, viewers should be able to recognise the signs of an unusually fertile
imagination, an offbeat sense of humour and a work ethic that would put the pyramid builders to shame.’
John McDonald, ‘A force to be reckoned with’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19–20 April 2008, p. 16.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
SAMPLE SHORT RESPONSE
Conceptual Framework
How does Fiona Hall respond to her world? Discuss, referring to ONE of her artworks.
(Written in 10 minutes under examination conditions)
Fiona Hall constantly searches the world for her ideas and images, striving
for understanding and meaning. In her works she loves intensity and intricacy in
construction while using non-traditional materials. She addresses and comments
on important current political and social issues, such as the trafficking of
plants and plant products, environmental pollution, diminishing of animal
habitats, effects of colonialism, consumerism and experiments in
bio-engineering. Hall focuses on the relationship between humans and nature. She
is concerned with the state of the world and the need for human responsibility,
as seen in her work Tender 2003–05, which relates to conflict and
destruction, focusing on connections between natural habitats and systems of
trade.
Fiona Hall's approach to her world is explained, including the issues that
concern her and are her main artistic focus.
This artwork consists of dozens of bird's nests of different shapes and sizes
that are made out of American one-dollar bills. She has shredded the money to
represent the twigs used for nests in the natural environment. The work conveys
to the audience the idea that the environment has been destroyed by human greed.
With deforestation, birds, animals and people are losing their homes. The
audience shares her despair at the way the world is being destroyed for profits,
the nests representing homes built with care and tenderness now empty and
abandoned due to so-called progress.
Reinforces the explanation by analysing and interpreting an artwork
Deon Pazpinis, Year 11
SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAY
Conceptual Framework
Discuss the work of two artists in relationship to the art object in contemporary art and its relationship with the audience.
(Written in 45 minutes under examination conditions)
Contemporary artists Andy Goldsworthy and Fiona Hall investigate nature as
the main theme of their works, exploring new ways to break the expectations of
art by working with non-traditional materials to address contemporary issues.
The artists challenge their audiences to interpret the artworks in their own
fashion based on personal experiences and knowledge. This relationship with the
audience is derived from contemporary ideals and structures.
Introduction states how the question is to be interpreted
British artist Andy Goldsworthy attempts to understand nature by directly
participating in it, placing himself within an environment and challenging
himself to grasp and capture the beauty of the site. ‘That's what I'm trying to
understand, not a single isolated object but nature as a whole.’
Artist's intentions are stated and reinforced with a quote
Goldsworthy uses non-traditional materials direct from nature such as leaves,
pebbles, sticks, thorns, berries, ice and snow. Using these natural elements,
Goldsworthy simply rearranges what the environment already provides. He creates
his works without marking or disturbing the land. In Dandelions &
Hole 1985, Goldsworthy has formulated an artwork using a field of dandelions
and grass, restructuring the materials to create a new image, yet without
damaging or impacting on the environment.
Like many contemporary artists, Goldsworthy is sensitive to environmental
issues when constructing his works, using natural ‘found’ tools, such as thorns,
rocks and saliva to put together his works without permanently damaging the
land. ‘I take nothing out with me in the way of tools, glue or rope, preferring
to explore the natural bonds and tensions that exist within the earth.’
Icicle Star 1985 demonstrates this approach to artmaking, as the work is
constructed of a number of frozen icicles bonded together using spit to create a
freestanding star positioned on top of a rock.
Techniques and materials are outlined generally before a specific artwork is
described
As Goldsworthy works in the open air and natural elements he is fascinated by
the concept of deterioration. His works are subject to sun, wind, rain and snow,
and have a short-term life. ‘My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds —
what is important to me is the experience of making.’ This concept contradicts
the historical idea of the permanence of art. To ‘preserve’ his works,
Goldsworthy records them photographically, capturing the process of the works
coming alive, at their peak, and their deterioration.
Artmaking process
As well as the concept of art as a permanent fixture, Goldsworthy challenges
the notion of art institutions and art as a valuable object. He avoids
traditional means of exhibition by constructing his works in public spaces
outside galleries. In doing so Goldsworthy prevents people from being able to
buy his works, challenging the idea that an artwork must be a valuable
object.
In Midsummer Snowballs 2000, several large-scale snowballs constructed
of snow and concealed natural elements were positioned at sites across the city
of London. The element of surprise was most important in this work, as viewers
were shocked to come across giant snowballs in the middle of summer. Goldsworthy
confronted the audience by displaying these natural elements in the unnatural
environment, leaving viewers to touch, laugh or simply gaze at the
constructions.
Second artwork example
In Cow Dung on Glass 2007, cow dung frames a clear serpent shape
across a sheet of glass. The audience can look through the clear glass areas to
the sloping hills in the background. This installation allows the audience to
view the work from multiple positions, each presenting a new aspect of the
artwork. By doing this, Goldsworthy indicates the way contemporary artworks
allow for various interpretations to create different meanings. This work
encourages the audience to reconsider what art can be constructed of and to
respond to the light humour.
Third artwork example
Goldsworthy recognises that the audience is an essential part of his work,
yet one that he has no control over. By exhibiting outside of traditional art
galleries, Goldsworthy stimulates direct involvement from the audience,
encouraging them to see the relationship between the energy and space
surrounding his works.
Summing up relevance of artist to question
Contemporary Australian artist Fiona Hall uses biological features in her
artworks to make political and social statements on contemporary issues and the
history behind them.
Second artist introduced
Hall also works with non-traditional materials, such as soft-drink cans,
candles, pipes, sardine tins, beads, soap and Tupperware. She recontextualises
these everyday objects, inviting us to look beyond the materials to explore
deeper meanings and think about why she used the selected materials. Hall's
Dead in the Water 1999 is constructed of PVC pipe and glass beads. The
pipes have been transformed to resemble growing, living organisms, allowing us
to identify once lifeless objects as biological features.
Materials/techniques
First artwork explained
Like many other Postmodern artists, Hall communicates environmental concerns
and the consequences and damaging effects that humans have on the environment.
In Occupied Territory 1995 she conveys through her delicately beaded and
labour-intense creations the dependence of humans on nature, forcing the
audience to consider contemporary issues of sustainability and our carelessness
with regard to preserving natural resources.
Frame, intentions
In Leaf Litter 2001 Hall comments on social aspects of contemporary
society, drawing references to consumerism and commenting on the role that
plants and other biological elements have played in colonisation. Hall has said
of Leaf Litter, ‘Money doesn't grow on trees — or does it?’ Here the
artist challenges the audience to consider the price we are now paying for
over-taxing the environment and for permitting an ever-widening gap between rich
and poor nations.
Second artwork
Fiona Hall's works can be admired by the audience on an aesthetic level for
the fine craftsmanship and skill of the artist, yet they simultaneously
encourage the viewer to look deeper to find meaning behind the delicate forms.
Through her research Hall ensures that her work suggests biological references
as well as political undertones. Medicine Bundle for the Non-born Child
1993, constructed of Coca-Cola cans, comments on the use of the coca leaf, once
an ingredient in the soft drink, which in Third World countries was used as a
form of contraceptive. This intellectual insight makes the work more than just
an object to admire; here as elsewhere Hall uses her art to comment on relevant
social and political concerns.
Third artwork analysed to support the argument
In common with several other contemporary artists, Hall's work reflects a
preoccupation with systems of display, often playing with different methods to
complement and categorise her arrangement. Her well-thought-out installations
are categorised to trigger awareness in the audience and capture the layering of
her conceptual concerns.
By using found objects Hall encourages the audience to feel a sense of
connection to and identification with the works and to comprehend the
transformation of the materials into the complex and allusive artworks they have
become. The use of found objects is a common practice among contemporary artists
who choose to turn away from traditional materials to investigate the qualities
and potential these found objects possess.
Relating back to question
Contemporary artists Andy Goldsworthy and Fiona Hall challenge traditional
perceptions of art in approach, techniques and practice by continuously breaking
down barriers and pushing expectations. In doing so they also change the way the
audience connects and interacts with the art object, allowing for individual
interpretations and different meanings to be perceived.
Conclusion
Sophie Stanton, Year 11
glass, metal, PVC, beads in vitrine
Vitrine dimensions: 158.1 × 250.2 × 90.2 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Artist's practice
Background
Fiona Hall is an innovative artist whose work can be admired on an aesthetic level for its delicacy and individual skill. But it is when you investigate a range of her works that you appreciate the force of her social and environmental concerns and her thorough research. It is the diversity of her practice that makes it essential to look at several of her works to appreciate her control of different media and the depth of her recurring concerns.
Hall was trained as a painter, but her career really began with her photographic works in the early 1970s. She began using recycled aluminium in thelate 1980s, cutting into drink cans, rearranging them and photographing them (the Purgatory, Paradise and Hell series and the Word series). With Medicine Bundle from the Non-born Child 1993, Hall used Coca-Cola cans as her medium, creating a rattle and adding rubber nipples to a six-pack of cans as well as knitting a matinee jacket, booties and bonnet out of the shredded cans. This work has social and political undertones, as Coca-Cola originally used the South American coca leaf and the African cola nut, both of which have been used in developing countries for their contraceptive properties.
The associations with American big business commodities and the irony of the harsh, rough handmade garments for the soft newborn leaves us questioning life values.
Intentions
Like many Postmodern artists, Hall is concerned with issues relating to ecology (the interrelationships of organisms in the environment) and, associated with this, the extinction of species. Science, the role of the collector, and the methods of and reasons for display and categorising in museums are also issues that inform her artmaking practice, adding levels of meaning according to the knowledge and understanding of the
audience. Her primary focus is the point where humankind and nature meet — our place and our plight within the world as represented in history and mythology. Hall often juxtaposes forgotten knowledge with artefacts and attributes of contemporary life.
Hall is deeply concerned with the state of the world and the need for us to take responsibility for it, and her works often carry strong social and political messages. She has used plant forms as complex metaphors or symbols for a wide range of issues and interests. In her 1995 commissioned work for the opening of the Museum of Sydney, titled Occupied Territory, Hall used beads, wire and nails, items that were first brought to
the ‘New World’ for trade, to create objects representing the seeds of plants (both native and introduced species), such as fig and banksia, growing in the grounds of the first Government House in Sydney. This work is a comment on the human dependence on nature, and the cultural and environmental consequences of
trade, exploration and location.
Fiona Hall's work encourages us to look beyond its delicate beauty and sensuous surfaces to discover meaning. Her artworks thus reach beyond their poetic and lyrical qualities, their beauty as exquisite, delicate, intricately detailed imaginative creations, to make powerful statements about our time and world. Behind the complex relationships between natural and manufactured objects, the sense of profusion and passion, is an underlying order and serious purpose — to reflect on what we have lost as well as what we may still lose.
They therefore challenge the audience on both an emotional and an intellectual level with their wit and multiple layers of meaning. Through mixing systems of thought as diverse as science, history, religion, horticulture and commerce, she opens up new ways of thinking about the world.
Materials/methods/choices
Hall uses non-traditional materials, mostly expendable and discarded materials, and transforms them into intricate and enticing art objects. She paints, models, carves, sews and assembles discarded items of consumer culture into witty objects and installations. Although her work is not explicitly feminist, her choice and use of materials (such as beading and soap) have feminine connotations. Her work often incorporates materials from the domestic sphere or involves traditional craft or female pursuits (knitting, weaving).
The artist's skill and craft is unmistakable in her work; she employs no assistants in the time-consuming and meticulous production of her works. The attention to detail and concern for precise craftsmanship is always apparent, whether in the fine beading, delicate gouache painting, soap carving, or cutting and manipulation of aluminium.
Hall has also reinvented the garden as an art form, as it was understood in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, although such a view is unusual in contemporary practice. Fern Garden 1998, at the NationalGallery of Australia, Canberra, was her first large-scale garden project. It incorporates tree ferns, curving pathways, fountains, benches, lighting and wrought iron. As is her usual practice, Hall employs a layering of meaning and use of symbols. The spiralling pathways suggest an opening palm frond. The
overall plan and wrought-iron gates refer to nineteenth-century medical drawings of the female reproductive system. The fern is one of our most ancient plants and provided food for Aboriginal peoples. In the main path, pavers contain an Aboriginal name for the fern together with the language group to which it belongs. Also mentioned is Destiny Deacon, an artist friend of Hall's, and the twins Deuchar and Tasmin Davy (they died in a light plane crash), whose family helped fund the project. The use of the medium of plants was carried into her
temporary work Gene Pool, erected at Government House using some of the most ancient plant species still in existence. In this work Hall challenged the viewer to consider the processes by which nature has been tamed and changed by human activities, and at the same time to review humanity's survivability through adaptation to change as a result of colonisation.
Display
Hall plays with the idea of displacement, of bringing into the art gallery or museum unfamiliar materials and forms that break art traditions, and challenging audiences to reconsider these materials and techniques, and their history and significance to cultural practices. She is intrigued and perplexed by the processes of naming things in the natural world and how institutions order and categorise their knowledge. The naming of her works, the labelling of the plant species and the symbols used trigger various levels of awareness.
Main concerns
In her exhibition Force Field at the MCA 2008, a survey of her work from the 1970s to 2008, Hall's art was organised according to her main series or phases, which range from the intimate to the global. In summary, they are:
Consumption: the ethics and values associated with
everyday domestic life and objects
Symbiosis: connections between various life forms —
animal, insect and plant — and to humans
Body: sensuality, privacy and morality as part of
nature and culture
Paradise: humanity's relationship to nature (Garden
of Eden), links to religion, culture and science
Territory: territories of power, politics and the
environment, the disappearance of species and the degradation of
bio-systems
Trade: global trade, finance and colonial history.
This past decade of her work with plants, banknotes and issues of consumption
links back to earlier works.
Artist's statements
‘I tend to choose materials already loaded with meaning … Having selected a medium, I then devise a way to make it take on the forms I want, so my work usually ends up looking highly crafted.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 19.
‘As soon as you make a work it becomes history. That is something I am aware of. The media I use seem to have their time and then they go very rapidly. Videotape is now obsolete. Within a few years of my first sardine tins in the early 1990s, the tins with the old-style keys were replaced with ring-pull tins. Banknotes are being replaced increasingly by plastic transactions.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 41.
‘In my art I am finding ways of bringing together the astounding, magical, uplifting world with the very sobering realisation that we are putting that world in peril.’
Quoted in catalogue Fiona Hall: Force Field, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007, p. 46.
‘Perhaps the ongoing exploration, the systematic working through of ideas and reaching out for different approaches and so on is the epic voyage.’
Quoted in Tim Morrel and Jim Moss, ‘Fiona Hall’, Photofile, Summer 1988–89, p. 27.
Critical practice
‘[Fiona Hall] seems incapable of making work that doesn't endear [make attractive] itself to the viewer — even if the viewer doesn't “get it” … Hall makes beautiful objects — in the case of Dead in the Water, mutant fusions of porous pipes and underwater flora suspended in glass vitrines. Her materials are eccentric, but obscurely suggestive: glass beads, PVC pipe, mother-of-pearl buttons. Hall has just finished a residency at Brisbane's
Botanic Gardens, where she pursued her interest in economic botany. Cash Crop — a sort of inventory of commodity plant life — is the clearest expression of her research: it lines up life-sized models of seeds, fruit and roots carved from yellow soap with punning phrases borrowed from economic jargon: seaweed gets “offshore trading”; the cola nut gets “global liquidity”; coffee gets “consumption level” and so on. It's very witty, very likeable …’
Sebastian Smee, ‘Concepts take root’,
Galleries, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 1999, p. 15.
While voicing his opinion of Hall's work, Smee also provides us with valuable information on the variety and uniqueness of her material practice.
‘The complex, ingenious, labour-intensive artworks made by Fiona Hall arouse great wonder, delight, incredulity [unwillingness to believe] and thoughtfulness in the viewer …
‘The intensity of Hall's making is never about craft, in the sense of serving a craft or tradition or skill. Rather there is a sense that she invents ways of doing things, of combining materials and techniques in order to strike the viewer with a freshness, an exclamation of wonder that will make them see afresh the combinations and juxtapositions of material and intellectual languages that she combines. Her soap carvings for Cash Crop (1998), carvings that can be worn away by water, carvings that are fragrant with soap scents, juxtapose
seeds with terms from the world of trade and finance.’
Stephanie Radock, ‘Fiona Hall’, Artlink, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 48, 51.
‘Fiona Hall imbues her work with the thrill of discovery, inviting the viewer to share her excitement … On even the briefest acquaintance with her work, viewers should be able to recognise the signs of an unusually fertile
imagination, an offbeat sense of humour and a work ethic that would put the pyramid builders to shame.’
John McDonald, ‘A force to be reckoned with’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19–20 April 2008, p. 16.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Postmodern Frame — artist's practice
In what ways does Fiona Hall challenge traditional artmaking
practices?
Structural Frame — artist's practice
‘Hall suggests meaning through her choice of materials, wit and symbolism.’
Discuss this statement.
Critical practice
Discuss the role of the art critic, using the above reviews on Fiona Hall as
examples to substantiate your argument. (You might consider some of the
following concepts: persuasion, opinion, judgement, interpretation,
justification, information, entertaining, challenging.)
SAMPLE SHORT RESPONSE
Conceptual Framework
How does Fiona Hall respond to her world? Discuss, referring to ONE of her artworks.
(Written in 10 minutes under examination conditions)
Fiona Hall constantly searches the world for her ideas and images, striving
for understanding and meaning. In her works she loves intensity and intricacy in
construction while using non-traditional materials. She addresses and comments
on important current political and social issues, such as the trafficking of
plants and plant products, environmental pollution, diminishing of animal
habitats, effects of colonialism, consumerism and experiments in
bio-engineering. Hall focuses on the relationship between humans and nature. She
is concerned with the state of the world and the need for human responsibility,
as seen in her work Tender 2003–05, which relates to conflict and
destruction, focusing on connections between natural habitats and systems of
trade.
Fiona Hall's approach to her world is explained, including the issues that
concern her and are her main artistic focus.
This artwork consists of dozens of bird's nests of different shapes and sizes
that are made out of American one-dollar bills. She has shredded the money to
represent the twigs used for nests in the natural environment. The work conveys
to the audience the idea that the environment has been destroyed by human greed.
With deforestation, birds, animals and people are losing their homes. The
audience shares her despair at the way the world is being destroyed for profits,
the nests representing homes built with care and tenderness now empty and
abandoned due to so-called progress.
Reinforces the explanation by analysing and interpreting an artwork
Deon Pazpinis, Year 11
SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAY
Conceptual Framework
Discuss the work of two artists in relationship to the art object in contemporary art and its relationship with the audience.
(Written in 45 minutes under examination conditions)
Contemporary artists Andy Goldsworthy and Fiona Hall investigate nature as
the main theme of their works, exploring new ways to break the expectations of
art by working with non-traditional materials to address contemporary issues.
The artists challenge their audiences to interpret the artworks in their own
fashion based on personal experiences and knowledge. This relationship with the
audience is derived from contemporary ideals and structures.
Introduction states how the question is to be interpreted
British artist Andy Goldsworthy attempts to understand nature by directly
participating in it, placing himself within an environment and challenging
himself to grasp and capture the beauty of the site. ‘That's what I'm trying to
understand, not a single isolated object but nature as a whole.’
Artist's intentions are stated and reinforced with a quote
Goldsworthy uses non-traditional materials direct from nature such as leaves,
pebbles, sticks, thorns, berries, ice and snow. Using these natural elements,
Goldsworthy simply rearranges what the environment already provides. He creates
his works without marking or disturbing the land. In Dandelions &
Hole 1985, Goldsworthy has formulated an artwork using a field of dandelions
and grass, restructuring the materials to create a new image, yet without
damaging or impacting on the environment.
Like many contemporary artists, Goldsworthy is sensitive to environmental
issues when constructing his works, using natural ‘found’ tools, such as thorns,
rocks and saliva to put together his works without permanently damaging the
land. ‘I take nothing out with me in the way of tools, glue or rope, preferring
to explore the natural bonds and tensions that exist within the earth.’
Icicle Star 1985 demonstrates this approach to artmaking, as the work is
constructed of a number of frozen icicles bonded together using spit to create a
freestanding star positioned on top of a rock.
Techniques and materials are outlined generally before a specific artwork is
described
As Goldsworthy works in the open air and natural elements he is fascinated by
the concept of deterioration. His works are subject to sun, wind, rain and snow,
and have a short-term life. ‘My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds —
what is important to me is the experience of making.’ This concept contradicts
the historical idea of the permanence of art. To ‘preserve’ his works,
Goldsworthy records them photographically, capturing the process of the works
coming alive, at their peak, and their deterioration.
Artmaking process
As well as the concept of art as a permanent fixture, Goldsworthy challenges
the notion of art institutions and art as a valuable object. He avoids
traditional means of exhibition by constructing his works in public spaces
outside galleries. In doing so Goldsworthy prevents people from being able to
buy his works, challenging the idea that an artwork must be a valuable
object.
In Midsummer Snowballs 2000, several large-scale snowballs constructed
of snow and concealed natural elements were positioned at sites across the city
of London. The element of surprise was most important in this work, as viewers
were shocked to come across giant snowballs in the middle of summer. Goldsworthy
confronted the audience by displaying these natural elements in the unnatural
environment, leaving viewers to touch, laugh or simply gaze at the
constructions.
Second artwork example
In Cow Dung on Glass 2007, cow dung frames a clear serpent shape
across a sheet of glass. The audience can look through the clear glass areas to
the sloping hills in the background. This installation allows the audience to
view the work from multiple positions, each presenting a new aspect of the
artwork. By doing this, Goldsworthy indicates the way contemporary artworks
allow for various interpretations to create different meanings. This work
encourages the audience to reconsider what art can be constructed of and to
respond to the light humour.
Third artwork example
Goldsworthy recognises that the audience is an essential part of his work,
yet one that he has no control over. By exhibiting outside of traditional art
galleries, Goldsworthy stimulates direct involvement from the audience,
encouraging them to see the relationship between the energy and space
surrounding his works.
Summing up relevance of artist to question
Contemporary Australian artist Fiona Hall uses biological features in her
artworks to make political and social statements on contemporary issues and the
history behind them.
Second artist introduced
Hall also works with non-traditional materials, such as soft-drink cans,
candles, pipes, sardine tins, beads, soap and Tupperware. She recontextualises
these everyday objects, inviting us to look beyond the materials to explore
deeper meanings and think about why she used the selected materials. Hall's
Dead in the Water 1999 is constructed of PVC pipe and glass beads. The
pipes have been transformed to resemble growing, living organisms, allowing us
to identify once lifeless objects as biological features.
Materials/techniques
First artwork explained
Like many other Postmodern artists, Hall communicates environmental concerns
and the consequences and damaging effects that humans have on the environment.
In Occupied Territory 1995 she conveys through her delicately beaded and
labour-intense creations the dependence of humans on nature, forcing the
audience to consider contemporary issues of sustainability and our carelessness
with regard to preserving natural resources.
Frame, intentions
In Leaf Litter 2001 Hall comments on social aspects of contemporary
society, drawing references to consumerism and commenting on the role that
plants and other biological elements have played in colonisation. Hall has said
of Leaf Litter, ‘Money doesn't grow on trees — or does it?’ Here the
artist challenges the audience to consider the price we are now paying for
over-taxing the environment and for permitting an ever-widening gap between rich
and poor nations.
Second artwork
Fiona Hall's works can be admired by the audience on an aesthetic level for
the fine craftsmanship and skill of the artist, yet they simultaneously
encourage the viewer to look deeper to find meaning behind the delicate forms.
Through her research Hall ensures that her work suggests biological references
as well as political undertones. Medicine Bundle for the Non-born Child
1993, constructed of Coca-Cola cans, comments on the use of the coca leaf, once
an ingredient in the soft drink, which in Third World countries was used as a
form of contraceptive. This intellectual insight makes the work more than just
an object to admire; here as elsewhere Hall uses her art to comment on relevant
social and political concerns.
Third artwork analysed to support the argument
In common with several other contemporary artists, Hall's work reflects a
preoccupation with systems of display, often playing with different methods to
complement and categorise her arrangement. Her well-thought-out installations
are categorised to trigger awareness in the audience and capture the layering of
her conceptual concerns.
By using found objects Hall encourages the audience to feel a sense of
connection to and identification with the works and to comprehend the
transformation of the materials into the complex and allusive artworks they have
become. The use of found objects is a common practice among contemporary artists
who choose to turn away from traditional materials to investigate the qualities
and potential these found objects possess.
Relating back to question
Contemporary artists Andy Goldsworthy and Fiona Hall challenge traditional
perceptions of art in approach, techniques and practice by continuously breaking
down barriers and pushing expectations. In doing so they also change the way the
audience connects and interacts with the art object, allowing for individual
interpretations and different meanings to be perceived.
Conclusion
Sophie Stanton, Year 11