Title

James Gleeson: On Starting a Painting. Decoding the secrets of Surrealist James Gleeson

Collective title

A New England Regional Museum travelling exhibition

Venues

UTS Gallery (1864 – 1864)

UTS Gallery (3 July 2001 – 27 July 2001)

Date

(1864 – 2001)

Summary

Single-artist exhibition. Located: Australia (NSW). Drawings

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

These drawings - characterised by Gleeson hallmarks of surrealistic themes and technical brilliance - give direct access to his working methods and style in a period of intense and mature creativity from 1979 to 1999.

In an interview conducted and published by art historian Lou Klepac, Mr Gleeson said that initial images came to him in dreams and took on a vague form in the stages between sleep and waking.

"When this occurs I deliberately refrain from making a sketch. I’ve found that the moment you put the image onto paper, however sketchily, it conditions the subsequent development of the image in the mind’s eye. Even the slightest sketch points you in a particular direction.

"I prefer to let it float in the mind until it accretes enough reinforcement from the depths to shape itself into a clear image. During this process I believe an interpretive element has been at work. The initial image has been fleshed out according to a barely conscious meaning that has become attached to it by the conscious mind.

"In the later series which began in 1983 the process is much less subject to rationalization. Most of them spring from drawings made in one session and without any definitely preconceived intention. The forms develop out of the quasi-automatic movement of the charcoal.

"Sometimes I open up the drawing even more to chance by adding to it a collage of fragments taken from a wide range of natural forms. Sometimes two or more quite disparate drawings have been put together to form a single image. At this stage I have attached no meaning to the image thus formed.

"During the course of painting – from the drawing – I begin to sense a mood, or pick up a suggestion, or detect a relationship which leads me to a title for the finished work."

Mr Klepac states that no painter of Gleeson’s generation has been as devoted to paintings that contemplate human consciousness. "During the last two decades he has produced a series of magnificent paintings which chronicle his unique and commanding vision.

"This body of work, which is the result of a rare and consistent imagination, must surely rate among the greatest achievements of any painter, not only in Australia, but anywhere in the world, working in our time." [press release]