Tasmanian College Of The Arts - University Of Tasmania
Tasmanian College of the ArtsTasmanian College of the Arts, Hunter StHigherDegreebyResearch (HDR) Fine ArtThe Sensation of Place: Translating the experientialStudio- ‐based examination process2015- ‐2016sensation of a place through painting.byAnn HoltMFA (Monash University)Submitted in the partial fulfilment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Signed statement of originalityThis thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degreeor diploma by the University or any other institution. To the best of myknowledge and belief it incorporates no material previously published orwritten by another person except where due acknowledgement is madein the text.Ann Holti
Signed statement of authority of accessThis thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying andcommunication in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.Ann Holtii
Ann HoltPhD CandidateAbstractThe Sensation of Place: Translating the experiential sensationof a place through painting.The aim of this project was to paint the complexities of ‘felt’ moments ofexperiencing place on Bruny Island, Tasmania, and in doing so, create avisual realisation of the subjective, experiential and conceptual awarenessof the artist in relation to the matter and phenomena of the surroundingenvironment. The investigation was based on the phenomenological modelthat posits that our understanding of place arises through inter-subjectiveencounters: the connections, meaning and associations we make in ourmind’s eye to what we see.This project explores the formal aesthetic and conceptual translations ofatmospherics and movement (light, time, mark) because these aspectsmost readily provide scope for a painterly inquiry into a subjective andintrinsic experience of place. Through immersive encounters and extensiveperiods painting on location, the project was driven by the recognition of theintrinsic feeling of place on Bruny Island – the sense of an ‘absence’ and‘presence’ in the landscape. In this context, the project not only draws onimmediate experience but it also brings to bear a sense of past events that‘live on’ in the ethereal feeling that emanates from the location. Painting onsite from direct observation collates the nature of lived experience with theperformative and reflective processes involved in making an image.The exegesis investigates how intuitive knowledge and the effects ofmaterial artefacts on the senses contribute to an understanding of thenature of experience. Furthermore, the social and cultural constructs thatiii
might pre-empt these underlying feelings intrinsic to Bruny are examined:specifically, Tasmania’s dark colonial legacy and indigenous culture thatis also central to Bruny Island’s history.The methods of a number of artists (in particular David Hockney, ClaudeMonet, Patrick Grieve and Neridah Stockley) for whom immersion isan essential part of the process in developing paintings that expressa deeply-felt connection to place, are identified and explored. Emily KameKngwarreye’s painting techniques are also informative in conveyingaspects of an experience of place that may be invisible to the eye, yetnonetheless intrinsically felt, and expressed through a painterly languagethat transcends cultural boundaries. In this way the project proposes thatpainting has the potential to be an effective agency to transcribe sensationsof what is both seen and felt.The original contribution, as encapsulated in the artwork and the exegesis,is a body of work that evidences the layers of complexity that contributeto the experience of place. In this, the project adds to the understandingof human relations to place, specifically in relation to painting and aperception and knowledge of Bruny Island. The research exhibition providesa distinct visual interpretation of the site, which contributes to the evolvingfield of interpretative Tasmanian landscape painting.iv
AcknowledgementsI would like to thank my supervisors Dr. Mary Scott and Mr. Neil Haddonfor their guidance and ongoing encouragement. Thank you to Fiona Triggfor her valuable advice and Sandy Coventry for the layout of the exegesis.I would also like to thank my friends and family for their support andunderstanding, with special thanks to my mother Joan Holt, my nieceSunday Holt, John Moore and Ellen France. Thank you to Craig Tate for hispatience and for being there.This thesis is dedicated to my dear friend Josephine Denne (1923–2016),of Dennes Point Bruny Island – a remarkable woman and kindred spirit.v
ContentsStatement of originalityiAuthority of AccessiiAbstractiiiAcknowledgementsvPart I: Central ArgumentIntroduction1Aims1Background to the project2The problem: central proposition3Outline of the exegesis/context4Visual Investigations – Methodology11Project outcomes and significance to the field13Part Two: The context of the project:Chapter One: Experiencing Place on Bruny Island16Part one: Bruny Island17Immersive experience – Walking20Immersion and the Senses23vi
Part two: The Nature of Experience and Place25Observation and the surrounding world26Place and feeling27Feeling, artefact and memory in the landscape30It’s in the air33Chapter Two: Place35Part one: Tasmania, an island apart35The shadow of colonisation36The Presence of Things Past37Beauty and Sadness in the Landscape40The impact of historical precedents and place on Tasmanian artists42Tasmania, the natural state46Contemporary paintings of place in Tasmania48Reflecting on Tasmania and precedents in contemporary art51Part two: The influence of indigenous culture on the experienceof place and painting in Australia52Historical incentives52A Contemporary Cultural Landscape56Black and White voices in the painting of place60Knowledge and diversity61Home and Country62An Indigenous perspective63The role of painting in Indigenous culture66vii
The paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye67Historical and Political Revisions of Place in Painting70Place, Value and Feeling72On Bruny Island72Roaming on Bruny Island74On reflection77Chapter Three: Painting Place79Visual language: the hand, the eye and the mind80The connection to place: painting in and around home84David Hockney88Monet91Neridah Stockley and Patrick Grieve93Memory in Painting Place98Layers and time in painting99On reflection103Chapter Four: Methodology/Studio Practice105Part one:105First Body of Work106Inside and Out108Field Trips109Evaluating the first body of work110Second Body of Work111Moment114viii
Part two: Letting go of form115Critical reflection121The figure-ground relationship in the painting of place122Form and spaciousness123Part three: Four Seasons127Scaling up127Four Seasons127Painting in spring129Summer131Autumn paintings135Winter paintings136Winter snow138Evaluating the seasonal paintings140Late stages of studio research/ongoing work142Painting the blue hours143Conclusion148Painting Light in a Dark World149Outcomes of the visual investigation:149Part one: Two hundred and thirty-four moments150Part Two: Transmutation152Part Three: The Blue Hours153On reflection155Contribution to the field156ix
List of Illustrations158Bibliography164Résumé173Visual documentation179x
IntroductionAimsThe aim of the project is to paint an elucidation of the sensation or feltexperience of place on Bruny Island, Tasmania. Our impression of a placeis initially formed through the ocular sensing of a visual arena that iscontinually subject to climatic changes over time. However, if paintingis to be more than a picturing of the discrete or distinct features of thelocale, it will include something of the artist’s experience of being in thatplace, and also what they bring of their previous experiences.Our understanding of place comes from inter-subjective encounters:the connections, meaning and associations we make in our mind’s eyeto what we see. Associated memories, coloured by our experience ofpolitical, cultural, philosophical and scientific knowledge, further shapeour perceptions and the relationships we form with specific places.Merleau-Ponty describes this phenomenological approach as viewingthe world not as ‘pure being, but the sense which is revealed where thepaths of my various experiences intersect’ (1962:20). The premise for thisresearch project is that our understanding of place is not formed throughobjective, distanced viewing, but rather through being ‘immersed’ within it(physically, emotionally and psychologically). We are, as Martin Heideggersuggests, ‘within and not outside the visual arena’ (cited in Jay, 1994:275).Being immersed in a place is also profoundly sensory. Within the realmof a sensory environment, beyond our visual and physical sensations,what of the place itself? Like people, do places also carry a resonance ofpast histories that manifest in the atmospherics or feeling of a location?How would these forces resonate in the painting of place? I propose thatphysical immersion in a location opens up the possibility of an innatesensing or tapping into the feeling of place.1
Through practice-led research, this project explores in painting, the elementsthat contribute to the sensation of place, specifically Bruny Island, and howthese elements might be translated into paintings that express ‘felt’ momentsin time and place. The research will address these conditions through thephenomenological model, in which painting place is foremost a mapping andmaterial registration of the subjective, experiential and conceptual awarenessof the artist in relation to the matter and phenomena of the world aroundthem. The objective is to develop a visual language that captures what isboth seen and unseen; a painterly and atmospheric rendition of time, place,light, colour and sensation, through the use of dexterous, spontaneous brushmarks that respond to the moment or series of moments.Background to the projectThe research emerged from my ongoing interest in painting Tasmania’sextraordinarily beautiful places, particularly in and around Bruny Island.Like many artists before me, I have been seduced by the visual power of theTasmanian environment, the abundance of seemingly unadulterated, wildlandscapes and the evocative light of this southerly outpost. However, theintensity of Tasmania’s beauty is neither benevolent nor untouched. Havingspent extensive periods painting out on location, I have felt increasinglysusceptible to an awareness of an underlying presence, an ominous feelingof an intangible ‘otherness’, that resides in these places. As such, theintensity of these feelings makes it impossible for me to continue paintingBruny Island’s unique environment on purely aesthetic terms.Tasmania has long been marked as a place with a ‘dark history’1. I proposethat this legacy manifests as a lingering sense of an emotive, psychologicaland melancholic ‘absence’, that stems from unreconciled and incompletehistorical resolution. At the same time, there is also the sense ofa primordial ‘presence’, a spirited energy that most likely stems1 Tasmania’s colonial history is renowned for its brutality as a penal settlement and itsunjust treatment of the island’s Indigenous population.2
from the proliferation of undeveloped sites and the island’s sensorynature, topography, visual drama and powerful weather conditions.This landscape’s intriguing paradox of beauty and sadness, darkness andlight, ‘absence’ and ‘presence’ has continued to fascinate me for a numberof years. It is a strange combination of a place that is both seeminglyhaunted by its past and yet richly alive. My enthusiasm for this projecthas been driven by the desire to develop painting methods that mightencapsulate the complexities of this unique equation.The problem/central propositionIntuitive knowledge or ‘felt’ experience is difficult to substantiate – after allit is a subjective phenomenon. However, I would argue that painting has thepotential to be an effective agency to transcribe sensations of what is bothseen and felt. Human geographer Yi-Fu Tuan confirms that pictorial artcan depict ‘areas of experience that words fail to frame’, adding ‘art makesimages of feelings’ (1977:148). The writer Ben Okri supports this premisepointing specifically to painting as a device that can make ‘the invisible.visible, the allegory of unseen things’ (2002:187).This project aims to correlate ‘lived’ and/or ‘felt’ moments of experiencingplace, channelled through the processes of painting, and realised in thematerial register of the completed picture. The primary objective is todevelop a visual language that will convey both Bruny’s ethereal beautyand light, along with the darker historical layers that contribute to theexperience of place in Tasmania. This is a complex task that involvespainting through multiple time frames.Firstly, painting the light and atmospherics requires responding to themomentary changes – literally from one minute to the next. Secondly,conveying the complexity of layers that underscore the experience of placeinfers a very different movement of time – much slower, less effected bythe ephemeral changes in the atmosphere. These layers are more likelyrevealed through sustained contemplation and reflection.3
The seeming incompatibility of these different processes in relation to timecan be resolved through being immersed in the location. The momentaryencounters with the beauty and intensity of sensate forces on Bruny Islandcan arrest the viewer into a thoughtful and contemplative interaction withplace. It is through these periods of pause and reflection that other aspectsof a location are revealed – the mood and feeling of a location that maycome from an alignment of sources and associations.Deciphering the factors that contribute to the psychological intensity andintangible, metaphysical aspects of ‘felt’ sensations is critical to developingthe visual representation of time and place on Bruny Island.Outline of the exegesis/contextTuan states ‘there is far more to experience than those elements we chooseto attend to’ (1977:148). What factors contribute to the experience of placeon Bruny Island and how can this be expressed through painting? I dividedmy investigation into three key areas that would provide a framework forthe research and inform the visual investigations:1. The nature of ‘Experience’2. The ‘Place’ (specifically Bruny Island, which is part of Tasmania)3. The dynamics of ‘Painting’, as both a process and its potential outcomesin translating ‘felt moments’ in time and place.Phenomenology provided the theoretical framework, with an understandingthat place is not confined to ‘the “real” world of perception, but is alsounderpinned by ‘the realms of the imaginary, of ideality, of language,culture and history’ (Edie, 1964: xvi).In addition, throughout this exegesis, I have included a series of journalentries that document first hand my experiences on Bruny Island, alongwith descriptions of place in relation to the transient atmospherics thatset the scene for a painterly enquiry.4
Experiencing PlaceAt the core of human experience is the desire to seek connectionsand bestow meaning upon events, objects and places: the ontologyof living in relation to the world as an assembly of meaningfulassociations. In the context of this project, it has been importantto consider the nature of experience and how we might detect anddecipher information into a synthesis of felt moments that could thenbe translated into paintings.In essence, experiencing place is a physical immersion in time and space,combined with psychological processes. Thinking, feeling, sensing andintuition are all components of experiencing place.In the chapter ‘Experiencing Place’ I discuss the sensory aspectsof being on Bruny Island and how, in the absence of superfluousdistractions, the intensity of the sensate atmospherics and referencesto the past are brought to the forefront, embellished by personalassociations and the imagination into a rich, multi-faceted experienceof place that can be transcribed into paintings. If the intrinsic feeling ofa location can be ‘sensed’ through physical immersion in a place, thenpainting on site is an essential part of the process in capturing livedmoments in time and place.Painting an image of the visual world can be full of moments where you arecompletely present and engaged in observing the light and conditions, inconjunction with the urgency of the task in trying to capture what is seenfrom one moment to the next. Experience can also encompass multipletime frames as our minds wander between the past, the present and thefuture tense and it is in this context that I consider how the flow of thoughtsforms part of our encounter with places.The investigation is informed by a number of writers and thinkers,including Carl Jung’s psychoanalytical theories of intuitive knowledge,Yi-Fu Tuan’s perspectives on the experience of place and anthropologist5
C. Nadia Seremetakis’ examination of the effects of material artefactson the senses and perception of places.The writing of Merleau-Ponty and J.E. Malpas contribute to the discussionin relation to developing a visual transcription of the feeling of a locationmade apparent through intuitive knowledge. Nicholas Rothwell’swriting is of particular interest in considering how the past mightbecome entwined into present moments of experience. Rothwell writesof a lingering presence, ‘something in the air’ (2013:14) that can beemotionally and physically sensed in the feeling of places.PlaceIn coming to an understanding of the specificities of the intensity of ‘felt’sensations that seem to be an intrinsic part of the Tasmanian experience,my starting point is a consideration of the broader issues of place and therelationship between humans and the environment. Tasmania’s geographicalfeatures are immediately stunning, but what lies beneath this visual, sensorysplendour? What are the components that underscore and/or inform thesefeelings of place in Tasmania, and in particular Bruny Island?In his book Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama states that ‘landscapesare culture before nature; and that once a certain idea of landscape,a myth, a vision, establishes itself in an actual place it has a peculiarway of becoming part of the scenery.’ (1995:61). One could argue thatto paint a representational image of a landscape or place means paintingwhat you see. However, the interplay between what we know, see, feel andimagine when being in a place, can be profoundly affected by cultural andhistorical associations. If I am able to pinpoint the external constructs thatunderscore my impression of Tasmania, then perhaps I will have a clearermeasure of how sensate forces, working on site, tapping into intuitiveknowledge and memory play out in the process of painting on Bruny Island.This chapter is divided into two parts: the enduring legacy of Tasmania’scolonial past and the influence of Indigenous culture on the interpretationand painting of place on Bruny Island.6
Place: Part OneTasmania – an island apart and the presence of things pastTasmania is a complex and contradictory place. On one hand,the prevalence of vast areas of seemingly unadulterated naturalenvironments mark it as a rare and unique commodity in an increasinglymodified world. In contrast to the purity and vibrancy, or ‘presence’ ofthis natural world, Tasmania remains beholden to a dark and odioushistory that has infiltrated its landscape with a strange sense ofa marked ‘absence’.History has become part of the mythic landscape in Tasmania thatcontinues to overshadow the island’s places and its people. Identifying thesource of this ‘absence’– (a lingering sense of foreboding or melancholythat stems from unreconciled histories and gaps in knowledge) and‘presence’ (a powerful primordial life force imbued in the proliferation ofseemingly wild natural landscapes) is a step towards authenticating the‘felt’ experience of place.These two aspects of place are common themes in Tasmania
landscapes and the evocative light of this southerly outpost. However, the . 1 Tasmania’s colonial history is renowned for its brutality as a penal settlement and its . The writer Ben Okri supports this premise . Place . 1. Place .
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