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Kurt Brereton with his winning entry "Here We Are–Gazing", 80cm x 120cm, 2010
This watercolour was produced by laying down layers of colour from light to dark (yellow to black).
Between each layer is a series of marking time strokes using a rubberised masking solution.
Finally, these marks were partially peeled off to reveal a pattern of underlying colours.
The only evidence of the geological-like process is the series of coloured "threads" at the bottom of the grid.
I left areas of masking solution to slowly entropically peel off with the passing of time.
I have been working on this Chronography (time-map) series for a number of years now.
In this work I wanted to explore the limitations and capabilities of watercolour to play with the idea
of how we tend to look at the surface of appearances while ignoring the complex layers of events that go
to make up our own and other's lives.
Judges David Van Nunen and Malcolm Carver with Kurt Brereton.
Judges comments - "The artist demonstrates an innovative, contemporary, abstract approach to watercolour in his use of successive layerings of transparent grounds and repetitive mark-marking to create a rhythmic pictorial pattern. In its intricacy and complexity, We Are Here-Gazing is exemplary of both the discipline and diversity of the medium. This painting illustrates the observation of mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, that 'Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern'.