Conversations with Alice

Jim Cobb – ‘N’dala near Ross River Resort’ – Atelier Interactive on watercolour paper using the Thick Painting Medium

Jim Cobb – ‘Near Ross River Resort’        

Bela Ivanyi – ‘View From Lookout Hill’ – Ross River 420mm x 575mm

Bela Ivanyi – ‘Midday Bleach on the Range’ – Ross River 758mm x 565mm

Bela Ivanyi – ‘Evening is Calling’ – Ross River Flood Plains Alice 475mm x 770mm

Bela Ivanyi – ‘Fresh Thistles on the Flood Plain’ – Ross River 455mm x 570mm

We are having an exhibition at Gallery Lane Cove in Sydney of work done by artists who attended the Ross River Resort in central Australia in July 2018, which is organized annually by artist Bela Ivanyi. The dates of the exhibition are 3-27 April 2019; opening reception 3 April from 6pm-9pm.

A psychological effect

There seems to be an almost psychological effect that the landscape of central Australia has on artists who enjoy painting landscapes – an underlying visual attraction to this arid and sparse landscape is to a certain extent the vividness of the colours (which most of us tend to exaggerate!) and the very interesting scale of the vegetation ranging from quite large trees to very small bushes.

Perhaps we could nearly say that Fred Williams more or less discovered the desert landscape back in the 70’s, but Bela Ivanyi has really made it his own back yard as you will see from some of his work. We now have a situation where a lot of artists who mainly live in cities on the coast also feel attracted to this seemingly unfriendly environment. Maybe the knowledge that the landscape is harsh and unfriendly is what is attractive to artists who like working in this area.

If you want to know more about the exhibition, please visit https://www.gallerylanecove.com.au/upcomingexhibitions.

Bela Ivanyi Plein Air Paintings From Ross River

Below are some of the plein air painting done by Bela around the Ross River area in central Australia.

They are sketches on watercolour paper and most of them are done with Atelier Free Flow which most of us like using at this location because of its vivid colours and gouache like surface appearance, but with the advantage of being over paintable because it has an acrylic base. Of course the paintings are also tough because of the acrylic base, whereas traditional gouache will be fragile.

To view more of Bela’s plein air paintings, please visit http://www.belaivanyi.com.au/html/PleinAir.html