INGALLERY.1
22 April- 14 May 2023
John Edwards: Across the Great Divide
This recent body of paintings, rather than being a literal depiction of bushranger events, is my meditation on the universal themes of love, betrayal, injustice and violence. The story of Captain Thunderbolt and Mary Ann Bugg is the vehicle through which I propel these themes, their story rising out of and ending in the bush.
I wanted to capture something of their lives, of the resilience shown in the face of conflict, one that propels the grit of an Australian ethos of making do, of being a cultural bricoleur and thriving. ~ John Edwards 2023.
This is a narrative integral to a colonised sense of place where characters, such as Captain Thunderbolt were notorious for stealing, philandering, murder and more, while Mary Ann Bugg, his gun-toting Indigenous partner, surveyed the terrain before he struck.
By painting Thunderbolts’ and Buggs’ adventures, each picture traces a moment of their lives, whether as hunter, skilled horse handler, wanted felon, surveyor of the landscape, or marauding bushranger wreaking havoc with the constabulary.
The bush is their camouflage, a terrain diffusing identity, as seen for example in Sliver where just a shard of the figure is revealed – the spirited meanderings of these characters are buoyed by the layers of paint while the punctuations of mark making on the canvas hint at resting places within the landscape.
It is art that is narrative driven, where beautiful scrums of densely worked lines intersperse with shards of primed canvas setting up a flowing rhythm, a kind of song line underpinning the journey.
By intuitively straddling a confluence of form, composition and colour, the rudiments of a good painting, the artist here generates an element of surprise in the works as if to create a bedrock for the feisty stories to unfold.
Edwards says, ‘I admire Sidney Nolan’s ability to ”…just let the material do its work”.’ This, and Edwards’ consistent focus, his confidence to paint instinctively, contribute to The Great Divide’s mastery.
And while the work appears to be swiftly executed, beneath its execution is the weight of this artist’s years of mark making and exhibition trajectory – inclusion on numerous occasions in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes and appearance in impressive group exhibitions such as the Salon des Refusés, Kilgour Art Prize and NSW Parliament Plein Air Prize. Further, his works sit proud in many collections including Artbank, the University of Wollongong and the University of Sydney.
Across the Great Divide, while literally referencing an expansive topographical divide of mountain ranges, offers a deeper metaphor embracing the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and the negotiation of sense of place for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the landscape.
‘I hope,’ says Edwards ‘that via the language of painting, other dialogues may evolve. By extending Nolan’s play with the bushranger narrative, I am intending to debunk a static notion of place and enable a myriad of stories to be told about what place and space can mean in 2023.’
Courtney Kidd (Artwriter and Art Consultant, Artbank) 2023.