Raw Vision -  Kylie Douglas
With “Raw Vision”, an exhibition of recent carvings and drawing, Kylie Douglas has returned to the City Arts Centre with a solo show of intricate, cuttlefish carvings. Her art has developed in leaps and bounds and exhibits a sophistication that is perfectly in tune with the spirit of the coastal landscapes where this artist gathers her raw materials. She is remarkably dexterous with this natural product and shows a commitment to workmanship that should underlay the technique in all art forms.  Of the carvings, the swirl and flow of Marie Torrent is a standout among this excellent series.

Urban dis and dat  - Peter James Hewitt

Peter Hewitt is an exciting talent, whose multimedia works are visceral and emotive, they challenge the eye to make sense of the uninhibited, bold brush work and big confident gestures. He has been a finalist in a number of award exhibitions and a bright future. Peter, a Yuin man with English heritage who grew up in Greenwell Point, as noted in his artist statement,  is carving out a place in “the ongoing discussion about how the nation’s first peoples are beginning to redefine Australia’s ‘Aboriginality’ through their experiences”.

"What your mob" 2014  mixed media on board




Escape ArtFest 2014  Alley Archies portrait prize

As well as judging the RIPE sculpture exhibition at the Milton Ulladulla Escape ArtFest 2014 I also judged the Alley Archies portrait exhibition at the Dunn Lewis Centre, where the standout and winner was Julie Cunningham’s Muse, a portrait of her daughter, an act of artistic minimalist courage which had an immediate sense of mystery & intrigue that settled into recognition of ‘familiar’ features but at the same time captured the unknowingness of another person no matter how familiar. The second award went to Sharon McCutcheon’s photograph  “2am”  captured an image that immediately told a story through great movement, atmosphere and detail. The angle photographer’s viewpoint gave a dynamic lift to the composition. 
There were two highly commended works, “On the edge of greatness: the new queen”  by Karin Neate provided a sense of drama, with a photograph of a ‘knowing’ self confident young person comfortable in a theatrical setting, while Lisa Leyson, with her oil on canvas, “ The artist’s daughter” , provided a sense of self absorbed innocence caught unawares of the viewer.

Max Dingle                                                                                      25 September 2014

The Milton Ulladulla Escape ArtFest 2014 is up and running and a very pleasant time can be had going to the various events and exhibitions at this time of the year. One of the best is RIPE sculpture exhibition and prize held at Cupitt's Winery just outside of Milton. The winery itself is in a beautiful location with views over a valley and the top end of Burrill Lake across to the Budawang Ranges. As well it has a great restaurant which has recently been awarded a Chef's Hat award by the Good Food Guide. The sculpture is displayed in the grounds around the winery and restaurant with smaller works displayed in the Tasting Room.I had the role of judging the sculpture prize and decided that the best way would be to view the works, have lunch and contemplate, then view the works again a sort out my analysis and notes written during the break.
Restaurant
Lunch started with a glass of sparkling white which unfortunately had been open for some time and was rather flat, I would have normally pointed this out but the restaurant is in the middle of a renovation and the staff were doing their best to maintain a calm dining room in the centre of a rather chaotic jumble of carpenters, builders, labourers and their dogs frantically trying to finish the new section of the restaurant in readiness for a weddings to be held in a few days time. 
The meal I ordered came with (complimentary) bread and oil / balsamic, a plus ,from my point of view bread should always be offered with meals and never charged for, as for the water which was also served.
Pork, Veal and Duck Liver Terrine,  Pear and Apple Chutney, Toast
Rump of Lamb, Gem Lettuce, Spring Vegetables
Brown Butter Crème Brûlée with Spiced Biscuit, Rum and Raisin Ice Cream
The meal was very well done, good flavours, perfectly cooked, with the lamb the highlight. The Brûlée was on the side of rustic rather than refined but enjoyable. 
A glass of Carolyn's Cabernet 2013 went extremely well with the lamb, a wine apparently grown in red granite soils, so presumably not in this particular area. Lovely fruit on the nose, smooth and loose on the palette with a tannic finish.
The service was efficient, polite, unobtrusive and calm considering the circumstances. 
Total cost $86
Sculpture
The  winner of the sculpture prize was  “The Phoenix’s Flame” which I noted requires multiple viewings to capture the beautiful & complex flow of multiple small elements. Finish on metal very well handled. There were two highly commended works :
-  “ Directions”  well conceived, it flickers between the abstract and the real.    
-  “Duality and reflections” Intricate and well thought out, setting rhythms in positive and negative and great workmanship.
Plus two Tasting Room commendations:
- “ Gene pool depository” Really great riff on traditional icon and religious imagery with complex meaning involved. Wonderful techniques and workmanship.
- “ last trees standing (prosthetic form)" delicate handling of diverse materials, reaches a satisfying balance in a calm and collected manner

Elisabeth Cummings : landscapes and interiors is an exhibition that will open at the Shoalhaven City Arts Centre on 13 December 2014 and run through to 21 February 2015. Curated by Max Dingle and presented in collaboration with King Street Gallery on William, Darlinghurst. 
Above images supplied by King Street Gallery on William.

by Max Dingle

to look is to gaze your eyes upon or acknowledge presence
to see, is to understand and pay attention, to look past the obvious and take time to thoroughly enjoy.

It could be said that Elisabeth Cummings had a “dream run” when it came to supportive family and a great arts education, however having a supportive family and attending the top art education institution in Australia does not automatically confer greatness, that only happens through application, hard work, developing technical and theoretical expertise and learning how to see; to look at the work of others, to look at the world around you, and really see.

I think everything you see influences you in some way. 
Elisabeth Cummings in conversation with Peter Pinson 2013

One’s eye is always attuned to relationship of colours and shapes
Elisabeth Cummings interviewed by Rosalie Higson.  Weekend Australian Dec 2003

Elisabeth Cummings has been a quiet achiever, and one of Australia’s the most respected artists, for most of her artistic life the respect and celebration of her talents has been by her peers, it is only in the last few years that the “market” has discovered that Elisabeth Cummings is one of the greatest artists this country has produced.
Born in 1934, in Brisbane, to a family sympathetic to a career in the arts, her father, an architect and distinguished academic, with artist and sculptor friends and the home a display case for paintings and sculpture, in her last year in school Elisabeth started painting with Margaret Cilento and from there, with parental approval, went to Sydney and studied at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, East Sydney. Teachers included Godfrey Miller, Dorothy Thornhill, Jimmy Cook and Ralph Balson, the latter teaching Abstract Art for one class a week. Then came the first of many awards and scholarships, in 1958 Elisabeth was awarded the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship that took her to Europe with stays and studies in Paris, London and Florence then toward the end of her ten year stay in Europe she studied at the School of Vision in Salzburg under Oskar Kokoschka.
Back in Australia, in her unassuming style, Elisabeth concentrated on life, teaching at the National Art School and various institutions and being a wife and mother, all the while quietly going about her art.
Her studio, in the bush at Wedderburn came into being via Barb and Nick Romalis who donated some land for artists to set their studios, this eventually became a company title with each artist owning the bricks and mortar of their own studio. Four other artists became involved, John Peart, Roy Jackson, Joan Brassil, and Fred Braat and all worked independently, coming together socially and to discuss the management of the common company property.
The bush, the landscape, along with still life, have been keystones in Elisabeth’s art. The studio at Wedderburn has been a strong influence and subject matter, Studio in the Bush, Night Studio and Journey through the Studio all attest to this.

“Journey through the Studio” is dominated by a single colour – red – that is inflected right across the canvas by related and clashing colours: an orange –inflected brown, a deep burgundy, a pinkish red. These clashes and harmonies are lent further sensory fizz by the extraordinary variety of Cummings’s marks.
Sebastian Smee  The Australian 2 November 2004

While the bush and landscape at Wedderburn feature, the artist has travelled extensively and it is the Australian landscape, from Pilbara Landscape to the At the edge of the Simpson Desert, that mark her recent work.

…in “At the edge of the Simpson Desert”, she takes a bold, up-front approach to the colours and shapes of a stark, arid environment. This dynamic landscape is also one of the most recent works in this exhibition, indicating that Cummings is in the prime of her career right now. In fact, she has yet to peak. I can’t think of a younger Australian artist who could pull off a large-scale work with comparable verve and confidence.
John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald    21 January 2012   

Elisabeth Cummings’s connection to the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery Collection is through a work from the 1970’s, a landscape, Wedderburn Bush, which was acquired via a painting prize held by the Shoalhaven Council. ( There are also three works in the M G Dingle & G B Hughes Collection that is bequested to the Regional Collection.) Since then the artist has won many awards and prizes including the Fleurieu Art Prize, the Portia Geach Portrait Prize, the Mosman Prize, and the Tattersalls Art Prize and is represented in many private and public collections including Artbank, The Queensland Art Gallery, The Gold Coast City Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of NSW.
A number of commentators have tried to look at Elisabeth Cummings’s work and assess it in relation to what it has in common with other major artists and influences, however I prefer the school of thought that it is better to assess art by its unique qualities. The thick layers of paint laid down in clashing, and contrasting harmonies, the battery of mark making and complex brushwork, all of which would require a complete book to categorise and describe. The artist seemingly veers from abstraction to figuration and back again drawing the eye into a complex lattice of bush strokes and where, as noted by John McDonald, in 2010,  the artist “barely seems to recognise a dividing line between figuration and abstraction.” and “cannot be summed up in a tidy proposition but its vagueness makes it feel no less real or close at hand.”
To fully appreciate Elisabeth Cummings’s works requires the viewer’s complete attention, the works need contemplation and time to see, time to reveal the secrets held in the whirling paint, to allow things to resolve themselves into curtain or tree, a sand dune or pebble and a second viewing allows greater access or even for a different story to emerge. They are a product of seeing and analysis, the numerous sketches made by the artist while on site serve as keys to unlock the memory of shapes and colours, to help inform the painting that takes place in the studio. Each painting starts dictating where it is heading as the artist progresses, but each work also encompasses a sense of place as well as the emotions and experiences of the artist.

Everybody’s struggling to find a voice... there’s so many ways to go – the conceptual movement, abstraction, minimalism. And there are people like me, who just keep on painting what they see.
Elisabeth Cummings interviewed by Rosalie Higson.  Weekend Australian Dec 2003