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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'.