Monday, May 6, 2019

Black is a Force: Solo Exhibition - Fiona Halse 2019



Dates: Friday 27 September - Saturday 19 October 2019
Opening: Friday 27 September 2019 ( 6- 8pm)

BMGART
Location: 444 South Road, Marleston, SA 5033.
Phone: +61 8 8297 2440
email: art@bmgart.com.au
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Friday 12 noon - 5pm; Saturday 2pm - 5pm




Title : Loss #5
Medium: mixed media  on canvas
Dimensions200cm W x 170 cm H
Date: 2018 - 2019



Title : Move
Medium: mixed media  on canvas
Dimensions:28.5 ( W) x 28.5cm (H) ( framed size) 

Date: 2019



 Title: IAM #3
Medium: mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 170cm (H) x 200cm (W)

Date: 2018


Fiona Halse’s series of large paintings, smaller paintings  and collages  explore Matisse’s statement that ‘Black is a force’ (Flam, J, 1978 p. 106). Halse uses enamel black paint to create structural tensions and collision of forms, but black  is also used in a similar manner to Matisse to  ‘simplify the construction’ (Flam, J, 1978). The majority of  paintings in the exhibition utilises black to create depth, heavy textures, linear forceful scaffolds and haptic marks.   Halse has included one lighter painting as a contrast where black functions as a linear architectonic construct.

Halse’s work  seeks to convey a personal space that is metaphorically associated with the human figure.  Her forms seek to capture the visceral and her abstract works connect to an essence that is not described but sensed.  Projection of self is generalised and reduced through expressive abstract forms.  Halse’s use of black does not seek to convey bleakness - darkness can be nuanced and can be associated with infinity, assertiveness, resilience and ambiguous void.


Flam, J, 1978, Matisse On Art, E. P. Button New York, p. 106

























Ideas relating to Black

Matisse, Black is a Colour (1946)

Black is a Colour (1946)
Before, when I didn’t know what colour to put down, I put down black. Black is a force. I depend on black to simplify the construction. now I’ve given up blacks. The use of Blacks as a colour in the same way as the other colours –yellow, blue, or red is not a new thing.
The Orientals made use of black as a colour, notably the Japanese in their prints. Closer to us all, I recall a painting by Manet in which the velvet Jacket of a young man with a straw hat is painted in a blunt lucid black.
In the portrait of Zacharie Astruc by Manet, a new velvet jacket is also expressed by a blunt luminous black. Doesn’t my painting of the Morocains use a grand Black which is as luminous as the other colours in the painting.
Like all evolution, that of black in painting has been made in jumps. but since the Impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in colour representation, comparable to that of the double-bass as a solo instrument.
Reference - Essay from the book: Matisse On Art – by Jack D. Flam
Reference - Flam, J, 1978, Matisse On Art, E. P. Button New York, p. 106


Reference - Matisse  - ‘Black is a Colour’ at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, in December 1946. 


Renoir called black ‘the queen of colours’
Reference - Vollard, Renoir: An Intimate Record, trans. H. L.

Tintoretto’s ‘the most beautiful of all colours is black
Reference - Eric Potter, ed., Painters on Painting (New York, 1971), pp. 53–4.

The ambiguity of black – is it thick stuff or nothingness, a colour or darkness? – has helped
it to carry other opposite values: fertile soil or burned cinders; smart clothes or widow’s weeds; the sexual mysteries of the night or death, depression and grief.

Reference - Harvey, J. (2013). The story of black.

Other ideas that relate to black: 
Virgin of Montserrat








Other related ideas: 


















No comments: