Out/About: Guy Maestri
Long time Arent&Pyke favourite Guy Maestri has had an exciting week. Together with the opening of his new exhibition ‘Heavy Ground’ at Olsen Irwin he has just found out that he is a finalist in this year’s Wynne Prize for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of NSW. Guy is not unfamiliar with the thrill of being shortlisted for this celebrated prize, he was also hung last year, and won the Archibald Prize in 2009 for his portrait of Indigenous performer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.
Guy’s recent travels are adeptly documented in ‘Heavy Ground’ with paintings of the Southern Highlands, Hill End, the Blue Mountains and Lord Howe Island, each terrain producing a subtly different result. It is his studies of Ball’s Pyramid, off the coast of Lord Howe Island, that are particularly compelling in this collection. Guy tells of being immediately captivated by this massive rock that rises 600 feet from the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Due to its geographical remoteness he wasn’t able to record his impressions at the site so he returned to the studio and made a perfect sculptural rendition in plaster from which to paint from. The result is a series of works (the Wynne Prize piece included) where Guy has documented, in the tradition of the Impressionists, the way changes in light and colour can completely alter the perception of a scene.
His characteristic gestures, with thick paint applied straight from the tube and swiftly worked with the brush and palette knife are all at play here. The beautiful ‘Studies for Falling Water’ with their limited palette and highly worked surfaces are reminiscent of Guy’s abstract roots while other paintings of Dangar and Belmore Falls adopt a more literal language and celebrate the raw beauty and majesty of the landscape.
Words by: Katrina Arent van Stom
Heavy Ground @ Olsen Irwin until Saturday 30 March.
Wynne Prize @ AGNSW 23 March – 2 June.
Credits:
1. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.11’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
2. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.8’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
3. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.4’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
4. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.7’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
5. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.10’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
6. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.5’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
7. Guy Maestri, ‘Ball’s Pyramid no.7’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
8. Guy Maestri, ‘Model of Ball’s Pyramid’ (2013)
9. Guy Maestri, ‘Last light over Balls Pyramid’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
10. Guy Maestri, ‘Last light over Belmore Falls’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
11. Guy Maestri, ‘Govett’s Leap no.2’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
12. Guy Maestri, ‘Govett’s Leap’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
13. Guy Maestri, ‘Dangar Falls’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
14. Guy Maestri, ‘Belmore Falls’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
15. Guy Maestri, ‘Fitzroy Falls: after the Bacon exhibition’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
16. Guy Maestri, ‘Study for Belmore Falls’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
17. Guy Maestri, ‘Study for falling water no.6’ (2013) at Olsen Irwin.
Photography by Mim Stirling mim.stirling@gmail.com.
