Gold Coast-based Steve Tyerman relays that his art has always involved the depiction of landscape vistas. “I have an innate curiosity, sense of wonder and awe of nature,” he imparts. “Eventually the coastal scenery experienced during recreational excursions seeped into my psyche and those seaside terrains have been persistent in my work ever since. The ongoing challenge for me is trying to find new compositional solutions and different ways to evoke a familiar landscape in an unconventional way.”
Referencing the title of his current exhibition, Mysterious Ways, Tyerman offers, “The element of mystery is important to my art practice, not only within the image but also the way it’s created. I believe that at least a little bit of mystery is necessary to maintain a viewer’s attention and engagement. I don’t paint in order to make sense of what I’m seeing, I prefer to preserve, embrace or maybe deepen the mystery of things. I think the title gels with my tendency to use pathways and tracks to lead the viewer in and around the picture. I want the paintings and their titles to be more evocative than elucidatory.”
Describing his art process, Tyerman tells that it starts by being present in a landscape observing, sketching and photographing. Elements from various locations are dissembled and reconstructed into an imagined scene. The resultant works communicate a visual experience beyond the strictures of traditional landscape painting. They are palpable manifestations as considerations of form, space, colour and light are resolved in the immediacy of gesture and impasto nuances.
A masterful composition, the seascape Keep Me Where the Light Is alludes to a wish to stay within the light both physically and emotionally. We enter this work via the railed pathway, following its direction downwards. There’s a mystery as to where it meets the turbulent ocean in a bay whose curve leads the eye out to the horizon and up to the dark, brooding sky. Tyerman has painted the firmament with a gusto that emulates the impending storm. Utterly contrasting, is the foreground with a detailed depiction of colourful flowers still aglow in sunshine.
Included in the exhibition are works not typical of Tyerman’s oeuvre. He describes the small, oil on board sunset pictures as “a change of pace”. “With these pieces I wanted to focus on less complex imagery where the entire effect is achieved through the use of colour.” A visit to North Stradbroke Island enabled his viewing of sunsets over the ocean that cannot be seen when living on Australia’s east coast.
The paintings, For Idle Dreams of Things That Cannot Be and With A Little Water We Kept It Alive, are most curious seascape depictions enclosed within the shapes of a bowl and vase. ‘Still Lifes’ they are not, for growing out of the vessels are banksias. Tyerman discloses, “I wanted to broaden my repertoire, I’m using the same subject matter and elements but putting them into a different context.” Having often painted banksias in his landscapes he stresses, “The fact that these do not seem like cut flower arrangements is important, I want them to feel alive and still growing. These works are artificial constructs taken from nature and the vase shapes are like windows into this world. I don’t use the word artificial in a negative sense. All painted vistas are contrived, but so are certain areas of Nature that we live in or visit. Humans have landscaped the natural environment to make it more accessible, user-friendly and to fit our ideas of beauty. My pictures could be seen as imitating, or sharing this quality.”
“I enjoy everything about the process of painting,” Tyerman concludes, “but probably the thing I like best about being an artist is that it gives time and opportunity to observe and think about the world around you, to engage with it in a positive and meaningful way. My works invite the viewer to experience that same connection.”
JACQUELINE HOUGHTON
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