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A solo exhibition of recent work by artist Angus Nivison.
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Angus Nivison
30 April - 30 May, 2015
© Utopia Art Sydneyphotography by Simon Scott
Angus Nivison
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How to translate experience into paint, how to capture something of the human condi-tion in a brush stroke, how to move and be moved? These are some of the questions that drive Angus Nivison’s curiosity.
Of course, he is not alone in his project – how many artists and writers and poets and musi-cians across the span of human civilization have attempted to do more or less the same thing? And yet, it is somehow refreshing in this day and age to meet someone with such grand, but simple, aspirations. There is no overt message; there is no prescribed mean-ing. There is just the artist, the painting and the viewer. From this triumvirate all kinds of won-derful encounters and transformative experi-ences can occur.
Says Nivison, “I’ve always maintained that once a viewer puts a story on your work it be-comes theirs. You can have a dialogue with a painting, and it’s yours for that moment. That’s one of the gifts of art. That is, to me, why good art endures.”
Looking at the painting ‘Longing’, I am imme-diately struck by the scent of rain on asphalt in summer and the nostalgic memories this instils in me of balmy childhood afternoons. There is a heartache to the painting’s beauty
that is difficult to put a name to. According to Nivison, “you could read it quite literally in terms of the dry times when the rain never quite seems to reach the ground, and longing for it to. But it is also about that human condi-tion of longing for something… and you can’t define what it is.” A glimpse of transcendence through storm cloud?
As with many of Nivison’s paintings, this one has a strong, but intangible, sense of place – here, perhaps, a view across mountains, there, a line of rain sweeping over pad-docks, just as much appreciated as bleeding swathes of acrylic paint and fine lines of silver and red pencil. “Sense of place is very important, not just for the landscape painter but for everybody I think. We all need to know our place in the world. But I think I could find something no matter where I was... I do like people to feel that my paintings have a feeling of the spirit of where they were painted.”
All of the works in this exhibition were painted at “Yalgoolygum”, Nivison’s property near Walcha in the northern tablelands of NSW. The country of this region, its peculiar lights and vistas and moods, can’t help but permeate Nivison’s art.
Angus Nivison
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Longing, 2014, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 197 x 176cm
The Seasons, 2014, acrylic, pigments and charcoal on canvas, four panels each 188 x 168cm
Presence, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 197 x 176cm
Accordingly, Nivison admits that the major work in this exhibition, titled ‘The Seasons’, “only makes sense where we are”, with a bitterly cold spring, a harsh summer, a gentle autumn and a hard winter. And again, we can find elements of landscape in this suite of paintings. Vertical lines could be the vestiges of trees, ridges merge into mist, horizons re-peat themselves.
Such rhythms also have a musicality to them – cadence and counterbalance. In fact, the painting was born out of Nivison’s reacquaint-ance with Vivaldi’s famous concertos. It was Max Richter’s post-minimalist recomposition of ‘The Four Seasons’ that Nivison listened to in his studio as he painted, and it is interesting to read Richter’s own words on the process of interpreting Vivaldi’s original score: “reclaim-ing this music for me personally, by getting inside it and rediscovering it for myself – and taking a new path through a well-known land-scape.” A statement that could just as well have been made by Nivison.
The personal journey of discovery is an im-portant one for Nivison, culminating in that moment upon stepping back from a painting when it suddenly takes on a life of its own. At the same time a painting is “the echo of a life” – that of the artist. At its most literal level,
each mark carrying with it the weight of the decision to move hand over surface just so.
In ‘The Poet’, Nivison’s most recent paint-ing in this exhibition, even subtle allusions to the world of mountains and paddocks and thunderheads have been removed. The cal-ligraphic lines that scrawl across an amazingly luminous black relate, in the artist’s words, to the “mystery and elegance of the human mark across the void.”
Words, like music, play a part in Nivison’s prac-tice. Quite often as he paints, Nivison will write on his studio walls, usually a single word or phrase that has come to him during the pro-cess of painting. In ‘The Poet’, however, it is as though fragments of the written word have broken off from their moorings and float free from the demands of any one language, from the need to specify any one meaning. As in much poetry, oblique flights of images prevail in Nivison’s art.
Says the artist, “sometimes I just begin.”
- Chloe Watson
The Poet, 2015, acrylic and pigment on canvas, two panels each 188 x 168cm
Windshift 1, 2015, acrylic and pigment on arches, 76 x 57cm Windshift 2, 2015, acrylic and pigment on arches, 76 x 57cm
Windshift, 2015, acrylic and pigment on canvas, 130 x 120cm
Change, 2015, acrylic and pigment on canvas, 130 x 120cm
Study for Change 1-5, 2014, acrylic, pigment and charcoal on Yalgoo letterhead, 21.5 x 20cm
Instinct, 2013, acrylic on canvas, two panels each 130 x 120cm
Life, 2013, acrylic, gesso, pastel and charcoal on arches, 105.5 x 151cm
Complicit, 2014, acrylic, gesso and charcoal on arches, 103 x 152.5cm
The Elephant and the Whale, 2014, acrylic on canvas, two panels each 120 x 130cm
Risk, 2014, acrylic on canvas, two panels each 192 x 172cm
Interior, 2014, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, two panels each 188 x 168cm
A Changing Landscape, 2015, acrylic, pigment and charcoal on arches, 76 x 57cm
Born 1953Lives and works in Walcha, NSW
Education
1972-74 Studied National Art School, Sydney, NSW 1975 Studied Alexander Mackie College, Sydney, NSW
Solo Exhibitions
2015 ‘Translate’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2013 ‘Letters Home’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, S.H. Ervin Gallery, NSW2012 ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, Tamworth Regional Art Gallery, NSW ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, Newcastle University Art Gallery, NSW2011 ‘Other Places’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2009 ‘Impossible Landscapes’ Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2008 ‘Above and Below’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW 2006 ‘Learning a Language: all about the weather’, Moree Plains Gallery, Moree, NSW2006 ‘Uncertain Light/Pools’, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW2006 ‘ear to the ground’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2005 ‘The Language of Mountains is Rain’, Coffs Harbour City Gallery, NSW 2004 ‘Paintings from Yalgoolygum’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2003 Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle, NSW2002 BBA Gallery, Sydney, NSW2001 BBA Gallery, Sydney, NSW1999 Coventry, Sydney, NSW1997 Coventry, Sydney, NSW1995 Coventry, Sydney, NSW1993 Coventry, Sydney, NSW1991 New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW Coventry, Sydney, NSW1989 Standfield Gallery, Melbourne, VIC1987 Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney, NSW1985 Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney, NSW1984 Parmenter Gallery, Walcha, NSW1982 Gallery A, Sydney, NSW
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 ‘Abstraction’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW
2013 ‘The Salon’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Air, Light & Space: Contemporary Abstraction’,
Glasshouse Port Macquarie Regional Gallery, NSW ‘Angus Nivison & Friends: Christopher Hodges, Helen
Eager & John R. Walker’, Walcha Gallery of Art, NSW ‘No Boundaries’, Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre, VIC
‘LANDSCAPE’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2012 ’25 Years – the Rio Tinto Retrospective’, Muswellbrook
Regional Art Centre, NSW ‘Ground Up – A Fundraising Exhibition’, Damien Minton
Annex Space, NSW ‘Voices of Art 3: An Evening of Art for Animals’, NSW ‘paperworks’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Art for Humanity: Painting and Jewellery for Australian
Red Cross’, Depot Gallery, NSW ‘Best of Coventry: Coventry’s Artists’, New England
Regional Art Museum, NSW‘Repertoire’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSWDobell Prize for Drawing, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW2012 Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney,
NSW ‘Eutick Memorial Still Life Award’, Coffs Harbour
Regional Gallery, NSW2011 ‘Angus and Friends’, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery,
NSW‘Up Close and Personal: works from the collection of Dr Peter Elliott AM’, S. H. Ervin Gallery, NSW‘Fleurieu Art Prize’, Hardys Winery, McLaren Vale, SAMosman Art Prize, Mosman, NSW
2010 ‘Water’ King Street Gallery, NSW Inaugural exhibition, Defiance Gallery, Paddington,
NSW ‘Museum III’ Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Salon des Refuses’, S.H. Ervin Gallery, NSW ‘Black is the Colour’ Shoalhaven City Arts Centre, NSW ‘Melbourne Art Fair 2010’, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, VIC ‘First Exhibition of Contemporary Arts’ Kabul, Afghanistan2009 ‘pinned & framed’ Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Abstraction’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘A Combined Exhibition of Local Artists’ Walcha Gallery
of Art, NSW ‘Countryscapes 2009’, Lismore Regional Gallery, NSW ‘Countryscapes 2009’, The Glashouse Arts, Conference
and Entertainment Centre, Port Macquarie, NSW
Angus NivisonBiography
2008 ‘Australian Abstraction’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘Melbourne Art Fair’, Royal Exhibition Building, VIC ‘Countryscapes 2008’, Country Energy art prize,
Wentworth Gallery, NSW ‘Pairs of Paintings’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW
‘Fifty Years of the Muswellbrook Shire Collection 1958 – 2008’, Muswellbrook Regional Art Centre, NSW
2007 ‘The 22nd Annual Packsaddle Exhibition’. New England Regional Art Museum, NSW
‘Country Energy Art Prize For Landscape Painting’, Dubbo Regional Gallery, NSWDobell Prize for Drawing, Art Gallery of New South Wales, NSW
‘Archibald Prize’, Art Gallery New South Wales, NSWArchibald Prize Regional Tour’ Manning Regional Gallery, NSW
‘Archibald Prize Regional Tour’, Bega Valley Regional Gallery, NSW
“Turning 20”, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2006 ‘The Year In Art’ S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW ‘Melbourne Art Fair 2006’, Royal Exhibition Building,
Melbourne, VIC ‘Regional Encounters’, Tamworth City Art Gallery, NSW ‘Walcha City of Art/ Contemporary Australian Art’, Karlovy Vary Art Gallery, Czech Republic ‘Same Place, Many Views’, Defiance Gallery, Sydney
‘Bits and Pieces abstract art’ Utopia Art Sydney, NSW2005 ‘from big things little things grow’, Utopia Art Sydney ‘Redlands Westpac Art Prize’, Mosman Gallery, Sydney, NSW ‘Sydney v Melbourne’, Silvershot, Melbourne, VIC ‘Sydney Art on Paper Fair’ , Byron Kennedy Hall, Sydney ‘Museum II’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW ‘New Ideas 2005’, Utopia Art Sydney, NSW The Wynne Prize’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, NSW Winner ‘Art on The Rocks’, Sydney Visitor Centre, The
Rocks, Sydney, NSW ‘Hazelhurst Art Award 2005 - Art on Paper’, Hazelhurst
Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, Sydney, NSW‘Agri/Culture: Re-creating The Living Landscape’, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, NSW
‘Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting’, Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW
2004 ‘Melbourne Art Fair 2004’, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, VIC Tattersals Club Prize, Brisbane, QLD
Jacaranda Drawing Prize, Grafton Regional Gallery, Grafton, NSW Walcha City of Art, New Contemporaries Gallery, Sydney, NSW Surface Memories, Tamworth Regional Art Gallery, Tamworth, NSW2003 Archibald Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW
Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW2002 Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW2001 Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW2000 BBA Gallery, Inaugural Exhibition, Sydney, NSW Federation, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, ACT (touring) Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW1999 Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW1998 Archibald Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW Salon des Refusee, S.H.Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW Kedumba Drawing Award, Blue Mountains, NSW1996 Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW ‘Salon des Refusee’, S.H.Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW1995 ‘Dobell Drawing Prize’, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW
Salon des Refusee, S.H.Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW Chandler Coventry:Obsession, Campbelltown City Art Gallery(touring), NSW
1993 ‘Chandler Coventry: A Private Collection’, Campbelltown City Art Gallery, NSW
1991 ‘New Art Five’, Coventry, Sydney, NSWMuswellbrook Art Prize, Muswellbrook, NSW
1988 Contemporary Views of New England, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW
1986 Artists from the North West, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney1984 Bloomfield Gallery, Sydney, NSW1982 Regional Artists of New England, NERAM, Armidale &
Tamworth City Art Gallery, NSW1978 Gallery A, Sydney, NSW
NSW Travelling Art Scholarship, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney, NSWSydney Morning Herald Art Prize, David Jones Gallery,Sydney, NSW
1974 National Art School, Sydney, NSW
Awards/Grants
2011 AGNSW Cite Studio Residency, Paris, FRANCE Winner Eutrick Memorial Still Life Award (EMSLA) Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, NSW
Angus NivisonBiography - continued
2005 Art on The Rocks, Sydney Visitor Centre, The Rocks, Sydney, NSW
2002 Wynne Prize, AGNSW, Sydney, NSW2002 Muswellbrook Art Prize, Muswellbrook, NSW1998 Kedumba Drawing Award, Blue Mountains, NSW1992 Gold Coast Art Prize, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, QLD1991 Muswellbrook Art Prize, Muswellbrook, NSW1979 The Sydney Morning Herald Heritage Art Prize Artist in Residence, Owen Tooth Memorial Cottage, Vence, FRANCE1977 Narrabri Art Prize, Narrabri, NSW1976 Mercedes Benz Award, Royal Art Society Maitland Art Prize, Maitland, NSW
Collections
Art Gallery of New South WalesArtbankAustralian Consolidated Press Coffs Harbour Regional GalleryGold Coast City Art GalleryHawkesbury Regional GalleryKedumba CollectionMacquarie Group CollectionMaitland City Art GalleryMEPC AustraliaMuswellbrook Regional Art GalleryNew England Regional Art MuseumNew Parliament HouseNewcastle Region Art GalleryTamworth Regional GalleryThe Australian ClubUniversity of NSWUniversity of New England
Bibliography
2014, Barry Pearce, 100 Moments in Australian Painting, Sydney: New South Publishing April 2013, ‘Angus Nivison’s Letters Home’, Leah Haynes, Art Notes, Art Monthly Australia, April 2013, ‘Angus Nivison: Letters Home’, exhibition brief, Art AlmanacApril 26, 2013, ‘Artist discusses his work’, Port Macquarie NewsMarch 8, 2013, ‘Artists capture essence of space’, Port Macquarie News
February 2 2013, The Planner, Sydney Morning HeraldFebruary 1 2013, Sharne Wolff, ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, The Art Life [online]January 19 2013, Brooke Lewis, ‘Memories of landscapes’, McGrath: The Weekly MagazineJanuary 12-13 2013, John McDonald, ‘New Year’s Revelation’, Spectrum, Sydney Morning HeraldDecember 21 2012, Elizabeth Fortescue, ‘Bushie’s reluctant brush with fame’, The TelegraphNovember 3 2012, Jill Stowell, ‘Drawing on landscapes’, Review, Newcastle HeraldJuly 2012, Susie Burge, ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, online, artravelife blogJune – July 2012, Sandra McMahon, John McDonald, Barry Pearce, ‘Angus Nivison: A Survey’, Tamworth Regional Gallery, exhibition catalogueMarch 2012, Sandra McMahon, ‘Angus Nivison: Featured Artist’, New England Country StyleAugust 2010 – January 2011, Lisa Slade, ‘Paper trail: dr9awings from the collection’, Artemis, Newcastle Art Gallery Society Magazine, vol. 41, no. 221 August 2010, Jill Stowell, ‘Drawing Attention’, Newcastle HeraldSeptember 2010, Susie Burge, ‘Fair Trading’, Harpers Bazaar (illustration)May 2010, John McDonald, ‘small mercies’, Sydney Morning HeraldMarch 2008 Tracey Clements, Metro, Sydney Morning HeraldMarch 2008 John McDonald, “There’s magic in these spectacular works’, Sydney Morning Herald, SpectrumCountryscapes 2008, Country Energy Catalogue, The Gunnery, 2007 Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting, Western Plains Cultural Centre, CatalogueMarch 2007 John McDonald, ‘’A Brush with Mediocrity’, Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum‘Natural Talent’, Hoof & Horns, 2006, Words, Richard Zachariah, Photos, Lizzi O’ConnorJune 2006 John McDonald, ‘A reality Czech from Walcha’, Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum – Arts & Entertainment, p16-17‘Insight’, Issue 1, 2005, Westpac MagazineJune 2005 Hawkesbury Regional Gallery ‘Re-Creating the Living Landscape’ CatalogueJuly 2005, Sydney Morning Herald, John McDonald, ‘Westerly Directions’‘New England Picture – In what they paint I see’, new England
Angus NivisonBiography - continued
Regional Art Museum, 9th July – 29th August 2004, Curated by Amanda Cachia2004 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award Catalogue, Grafton Regional GalleryAfter Hours, The Weekend Australian Financial Review, John McDonald, ‘Archibald’s close brush with fame’, June 2002June 2002, The Sydney Morning Herald, Bruce James, ‘Death’s great frame of reference’June 2002, The Daily Telegraph, Elizabeth Fortescue, ‘Hard-earned Wynne’October, 2002, Daily Telegraph, ‘Farmers turn to art for solace’Muse, August 2001, Rocks and Flesh, Ann McMahonSun Herald, December 2000, Hannah Edwards, ‘Art and Soul of Australia’ ‘Canberra Times’, ‘A Remarkably High Standard’, Sasha Grishin, ‘Rocks and Flesh’ at Artists Ties GalleryOctober 2, 1999, Sydney Morning Herald, Bryce Hallett, ‘Sent to Coventry, now he’ll hang for his mentor’Sydney Morning Herald, 1999, ‘The Galleries’ section, ‘The Big Picture’, Sebastian SmeeJohn McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald, ‘The Misfits: Hermits, but Brothers in Arts’November, 1995, The Armidale Express, Wend Fitzgibbon, ‘Donation caps great week for NERAM’1995 Sydney Morning Herald, John McDonald, ‘Along The Path to Understanding’ ‘Landscape without Figure’, 1991, Joe Eisenberg, Director, NERAMJune, 1991, Coventry Gallery, ‘Angus Nivison – Landscape Without Figure’ Catalogue
TalksAngus Nivison in conversation with Christopher Hodges, S.H. Ervin Gallery, 10 February 2013Q&A session with Angus Nivison and photographer R. Ian Lloyd, S.H. Ervin Gallery, 3 February 2013 Bryan Hooper exhibition floor talk at S.H. Ervin Gallery, 27 January 2013Interview, ‘Canvas’, FBI Radio, 20 January 2013‘Studio’ an evening with John McDonald and Angus Nivison, Tamworth Region Art Gallery, 19 July, 2011 ‘Studio 2’ at the State Library of NSW with Wendy Sharp, 18th September, 2008
Angus NivisonBiography - continued
Utopia Art Sydney2 Danks StreetWaterloo NSW 2017
Telephone: + 61 2 9699 2900email: [email protected]
© Utopia Art Sydneyphotography by Simon Scott
30 April - 30 May, 2015
Angus Nivison
translate
Utopia Art Sydney2 Danks StreetWaterloo NSW 2017
Telephone: + 61 2 9699 2900email: [email protected]
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