Tarli Glover can’t put a finger on exactly why the landscapes of western Victoria so inspire her but they’re a recurring theme and the focus of her new exhibition Land.
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The simple act of travelling through the countryside reveals her sensitivity to the colour blocks of the landscape, the shape-shifting of tones and the big skies.
The abstract artworks that result can sometimes be identified as a specific place but are more likely an amalgam of many different inspirations.
“I’m really interested in the abstracts of the environment around me, particularly the space and colour,” she said.
Although her main medium is paint, the large-scale works in Land are primarily pastels on paper.
“As far as the medium goes, I was never really a huge fan of soft pastels but my grandfather was an artist and I received his pastels when he passed away. They had been in storage for a while because I had tried pastels a couple of times in art school and they weren’t my thing, but I dragged them out because I wanted to do something a bit different.
“I’ll always return to painting, but I just wanted to drag them out and start with pastel and I discovered I really like them, but my application is quite different to what would be considered normal as I put them on, rub them off, wash, reapply and use several different methods.”
The largest artwork to be on display in Land is a painting about 2m x 1.8m while the large scale pastel drawings are about 1.4m x 1.3m. The bright, bold abstracts are eye catching and identifiable only in some cases.
“I travel around a lot from Ballarat to the Grampians and that’s the sort of landscape where I take images, but the in the studio I jumble them all up and put them together to match the sense of space and colour I’ve been thinking about.”
The artistic gene runs strongly through Ms Glover’s family and art and design have always been a focus. “We were a very creative family, always discussing design and colour and aesthetics, so I’ve always been open to that sort of vision.”
Land is at The Lost Ones until November 5.