One of the primary pleasures of looking at a still life painting is its ability to offer insights into smaller details of the world, alongside a deeper narrative of the lived experience.
While most often seen representing objects decidedly domestic in nature, still life painting can also function as a study in transcendence, creating a speculative space of tangible and immaterial possibility. Through the intentional isolation of objects and the meticulous observation of form and light, they offer an opportunity to explore the shifting tension between reality and our reception of it. Indeed, one of the primary pleasures of looking at a still life painting is its ability to offer insights into smaller details of the world, alongside a deeper narrative of the lived experience.
Responding to the most intimate states of interiority, both conscious and instinctual, the still life genre is also subject to the historical forces operating within a given culture. Michelangelo Caravaggio’s Renaissance passion for ripe fruit and blood red wine is in total contrast to the work of post-World War II master Giorgio Morandi’s utilitarian depictions of small monotone bottles. The act of recording those objects that fill our days, that give us comfort or sustain us, reflects the aesthetic, conceptual and subjective values systematic of the artist’s time.
Julie Davidson’s highly representational and formally rigorous paintings position themselves within a broadly pluralistic, contemporary interest in both the literal and existential. Behind the modest restraint of each of her subjects – cloth, vessel, fruit and plant – an interrogation is being set up between perceptions of the domestic and ritual, the banal and cherished. Each object sits in a state of simple repose, open to the scrutiny of the gaze. Beyond their assumed solidity and uniqueness – their truthfulness – they also serve to pay witness to a more transient, shifting state of mind.
Amidst the stillness of foliage and fabric, it is the dappled effect of bright sunlight that interrupts an otherwise static scene. Here light becomes a pervasive agent, used to activate something very much alive, penetrative and questioning. Its slow, haptic fall across the surface of each object gives a heightened sense of clarity to their otherwise imperceptible details. The eye lingers on the dying tips of leaves, the faint outline of an obscured table leg, the mottled shadow of an unseen tree canopy – each suggestive of the steadfast and earthbound reality of time beyond this resonate, halted moment.
Through the act of painting, the merest of things can be elevated to a state of veneration. Rather than being imbued with any emblematic or luxurious value, these objects are transformed into tools of meditation. They function as a means to sharpen the senses, forcing the viewer to take the time to observe with clarity.
In essence Davidson’s work is searching for that elusive, fleeting experience of harmony and tranquility. Her still life paintings aim to capture that unexpected instant in which time opens out and softens, bringing with it a spirit of balance between world and the self.
About the artist
Julie Davidson’s was runner up in the Warwick Regional Gallery Art Prize and finalist in the Mandoorla Art Prize and the Blake Prize for Religious Art. She has produced a number of commissioned portraits and her works are represented in private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas. This is her first solo exhibition at Flinders Lane Gallery.
Julie Davidson: Offering shows at Flinders Lane Gallery, 137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, until December 7.
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Images
1. Pomegranates in blue bowl – Julie Davidson
2. Persimmons – Julie Davidson
3. Camellias in white bowl – Julie Davidson
4. Quinces in silver bowl – Julie Davidson
5. Still life with persimmons – Julie Davidson