The Path to Nature… by John McDonald
A work of art is a leap in the dark, and an artist reveals a lot about herself in the way she takes that plunge. Some painters proceed with caution, making careful preliminary drawings, gridding up canvases, measuring out a composition before picking up the brush. Others are more spontaneous, eager to capture the most fleeting impressions of light or atmosphere.
Laura Matthews comes across as a fearless explorer, ready to set down her observations in powerful strokes and smears of paint. One shouldn't, however, view this conspicuous display of energy as a rejection of drawing and composition. When we learn that Matthews spent six years at the Slade School in London under an artist as slow and painstaking as Euan Uglow, it's hardly possible she could get to the end of her studies without an enormous amount of drawing and measuring.
A nude that Matthews painted as a student, now in the collection of University College, London, is strongly reminiscent of Uglow's figures, although even at this stage she was edging towards a greater freedom. One may see Matthews as an artist who didn't so much rebel against her early training, as internalise it. She paints with speed and self-confidence because the underlying work has already been done by the eye and the mind. It remains only for the hand to translate her understanding into a picture.
It may be that moving to Australia in 2002 encouraged Matthews to adopt a more physical style of painting. As a mature artist, secure in her knowledge of the fundamentals, she can paint with expressionist verve without ever losing sight of the motif.
Matthews eschews detail and finish, using only what is strictly necessary to capture a spirit of place. Her figures may be no more than silhouettes that invite us to insert ourselves imaginatively into these landscapes, although some of them are strangely familiar. In the series she calls Vignettes one can recognise characters from famous paintings such as Rousseau's The Snake Charmer (1907) or Gérôme's Pygmalion and Galatea (1890).
Matthews is letting us know that she doesn't view nature and art as separate categories of experience, but as closely aligned and connected. She would probably agree with Cézanne, who allegedly said, "the path to nature leads through the Louvre." It's a formula that also works in reverse, as we best appreciate those works on the gallery wall that reflect all the pleasures we take from the natural world.
John McDonald writes & edits the site, 'Everything the artworld doesn't want you to know'.
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