Alexandra Sasse

Australian Landscape Paintings

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A sophisticated observational drawing of a kind not seen often nowadays. The work employed a minimal range of drawn marks to represent a grand view, full of space and depth, and subtly guiding the eye to move from focal point to focal point. A devoted attentiveness is beautifully maintained. 

John Wolseley and Geoffrey Dupree, Judges, Arc Yinnar Drawing Prize

Brett Whiteley: More Heat than Light?

January 30, 2019 by Alexandra Sasse

‘Evening coming on in Sydney Harbour’ 1975, Brett Whiteley

Prolific, intense and successful, Whiteley’s art and life have been difficult to separate. Twenty-six years after his untimely death, his work lives on as part of our present whilst his colourful life story fades into the fabric of history.  Baldessin/Whiteley: Parallel Visions at the National Gallery of Victoria (until 28.1.19) is a chance to reassess. Brett Whiteley and George Baldessin, printmaker of figurative expressionist etchings, were born in the same year but there is little else to tie them together and I will leave Baldessin to another time.

The Whiteley works span his entire oeuvre – from his 1956 travelling scholarship win and early abstracts to his late Sydney Harbour pictures, stopping by his London Christie works and his New York period on the way.

Painting by Brett Whiteley depicting the township of Sofala in a simplified and flattened composition.
‘Sofala’ 1958. Brett Whiteley

The earliest paintings – tentative, evocative, nuanced – are heavily influenced by Lloyd Rees and Russell Drysdale; the latter was the judge of Whiteley’s scholarship win. In Sofala (1958) earth-rich reds, warm greys and creams are woven into a flattened and simplified image of a country town. The horizon line sits up close to the top edge of the painting – we are immersed in a sparse domestic world clinging to life on a harsh but harmonious crimson land. Shades of Nolan, Drysdale and Tucker infuse Whiteley’s sensibility at this stage. His later rococo line is absent, pre-dated by the pared and scraped back forms more consistent with the drought and angst-stricken images of Australia that had begun to make such an impact on London, chiming, as they did with the mood of post war existentialism. [Read more…]

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Alexandra Sasse

Alexandra Sasse

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