James Robertson
15 Septermber - 30 September, 2011
The paintings in "Into the Distance" are diverse, impassioned and unique.
The Romantic tradition has always played a significant role in the history of landscape painting. The passion and the power of the greats, such as JMW Turner and Thomas Gainsborough, continue to influence a range of artists to this day. Their vision has survived the rise and fall of modernist, and indeed, post-modernist movements, that sought to dismantle the very structure of painting itself.
Enduring the onslaught of the avant-garde, the tradition of Romantic painting now prospers in an environment where young artists are looking back to the masters as a starting point for their own practice. The question is 'how do they deliver work that does not fall into clichéd and well-worn imagery'? James Robertson is an artist who has taken the challenge head on. The paintings in Into the Distance are diverse, impassioned and unique.
Robertson's starting point is the landscape or in many cases, the sky-scape. It is important to understand from the outset that Australia has always had an affinity with the landscape, both real and imagined. It constantly permeates our psyche. Whilst the work of Robertson uses the landscape in all its intense glory, his painting does not always directly reference the Australian landscape. His scenes are not site-specific - we could be looking into the distance of any place. However, there is something quintessentially antipodean about Robertson's paintings, often manifested through his esoteric use of humour. His use of the figure offers a poignant commentary on our contemporary society. In Turner's time, the figure was presented as subordinate to the sublimity of nature, whilst Robertson's figures appear wistful, sometimes fearful, not necessarily of nature itself but forces beyond individual control.
If a measure of great art is its ability to provide a commentary of a time, there are few better examples of a contemporary artist interpreting our turbulent lives. The apprehensive atmosphere conveyed by Robertson's figures is contrasted with the romance of his landscapes that not only offer redemption, but hope beyond the burden of our mercantile society.
Ralph Hobbs, 2011
