Story and place
Lou Oakes - narrative, poetry and landscape.
The story and the song
My work is about the narrative, poetry and song of place. Throughout my adult life I’ve painted, drawn and written about landscapes. Looking and noticing the small details, paying attention to light, colour, movement and sounds: what the land tells of the past as well as the present, this is listening to its song and story. And when I paint, I want to tell that song and story: the rush of the wind, the beauty and life of the trees, the hidden tracks and trails, fence lines and posts, the notes of past and present.
I live and work in the Australian Bush. Every day I walk, I listen, I look, and I sketch the small ‘noticings’ that are like little treasures to collect. I take these back into the studio and the small details and larger shapes of the landscape then combine to build a painting layer by layer. Each unique piece is sung into life by the addition of paint and collage, pencil lines and texture because each artwork, like each place, has its own story to tell. The layers of a painting are a history of the process of making, just like the history of a landscape or the strata exposed by a geologist’s trowel.
Each painting is a unique creative and spiritual piece sung into life
Drawing with shape and pattern
When I walk my eye roves across hills and valleys, through paddocks and along streams, seeking out what has been placed purposely or what was once used, now forgotten and left behind. And once noticed and felt, back in my studio my brush begins the work of drawing the shape of the song of the land itself. Patterns left by the people who have come and gone like an imprint of their lives, hopes and dreams become lines and marks made by paint, pencil and pen. Dotted around the paintings are the traces you can see in the land of boundaries and movement: fence lines, trails and tracks - all the lines that tell of industry and belonging. Homes and sheds are dotted across the surface like markers of families past and present that sit upon a land with a great history of careful stewardship.
In all the landscapes I walk through there is a beauty that transcends and invites. Transcends by lifting our attention to that which is normally beyond our vision, momentary revelations when the veil parts, and the very hand of God and the spirit of life can be glimpsed. Invites by offering those moments of connection with something greater than ourselves, lifting from us from the weight of material things so that we might know the joy of divine presence.
Welcome to my world of landscape and story, I hope you enjoy looking at my work.
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