Penny Burnett

A simple palette of three Yellows and Burnt Umber is used to explore the concept of Truth as expressed in Masaccio’s Adam and Eve’s Expulsion. The meditative act of creating a colour chart through multiple transparent films of pigment, creates a tactile Visio-Divina, referencing the consequences of pursuing knowledge for power rather than trusting in the Truth of God’s words.

Colour works well as an analogy for truth, it defies definition. We all experience truth and colour subjectively and relationally.

So, what is Truth/Colour?

Searching,

Curiosity,

Iteration,

Acknowledging bias, past mistakes, fears,

Individuality,

Concealed beyond the focal plane of the canvas,

The combined effect is that each colour functions as a lens, yet the image (truth) remains obscured.

Oil on Canvas, 81 x 66 cm

I can’t unsee the trees lament, I wonder how long they have groaned. Overwhelmed with sadness, I walked to the riverbank, where the flood waters had subsided, revealing sorrow and death. The smell of dead fish filled the air, with roots and debris exposed and the landscape heaving– again, I wept, joining the ‘how long’ chorus. The red earth lay flat, carpeted with burrs and cut-through thorns, harsh yet beautiful. This silent groan was a revelation, hinted but hidden until I had the Encounter (17th April 23, Gundabooka, N.P.). Only a few hours earlier, I had been blanketed by the desert starlit sky. In the thin hours, three spirit men approached, shaking the ancient land and my flimsy swag, jolting me from liminality. Their looming inspection found me wanting, this was not a friendly visitation. My entreating turned to respectful declaration, and graciously, these holders of time moved on, opening my eyes to listen to the silence.

Curiously, as I was leaving, a large brown snake appeared out of nowhere where I had had the Encounter.

Finalist in 2021 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize

Category: emerging

As a landscape painter being confined to my home studio during the pandemic was disconcerting. The search for inspiration forced me back to the basics of an art practice. The words unprecedented, pivot, reassess, recalibrate were often used help us adjust. A Chart Stripped Bare - freedom in restraint is a glimpse of what “unprecedented” looked like for me. By limiting my palette to two hues plus white, I forced my own lockdown on the canvas. It was my intention to find beauty in restraint and to exhibit these works constrained by wire but free to relate to one another

Gray Zone 1-13

2100 x 980

oil on unstretched canvas

Gray Zone 1-13 is painterly reflection on larrertenner and wurrawina – Light and Shadow.  In a cultural moment of increased polarisation, I wanted to highlight the colour embedded in black and white.  Throughout history we have been told black absorbs, a total absence of light.  If this is true, blacks’ absorption would also imply that it is actually full of colour and light. Perhaps it is time to examine common perceptions and discover that enlarging our perspective actually enables us to see what we previously were unaware existed, unlocking a whole new world of beauty- the Light and Shadow of collective humanity.  

1.   Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue

2.  Naphthol Red & Phthalo Turquoise

3.  Burnt Umber & Indanthrone Blue

4.  Phthalo Blue, Dutch Brown & Quinacridone Magenta

5.  Prussian Blue, Alizarin Crimson & Raw Umber

6.  Alizarin Crimson & Spectrum Viridian

7.  Paynes Grey & Mars Brown

8.  Phthalo Green (yellow shade) & Quinacridone Magenta

9.  Quinacridone Magenta & Olive Green

10.  Cobalt Blue Deep & Red Ochre

11.   Caput Mortuum & Phthalo Blue

12.  Permanent Blue & Raw Umber

13.  French Ultramarine & Burnt Sienna

2000 x 450mm

oil paint on Japanese ply and wire hanging system

Finalist work in 2022: Woman’s Art PrizeTasmania

Exhibition History:

- Freedom in Restraint, Poimena 2021 ,

- Woman’s Art Prize 2022 , Launceston, Devonport and Hobart,

- 2024, Charting Colour in the Gray Zone, Rosney Barn

Part of a series of work completed as part of the 2021 Artist in Residence program @ Poimena. See full exhabition and details in currant projects blog & selected exhibitions tab.

image credit to Louise Middleton

After the Wild - Inside and Out

I came away from my recent residency at Cradle mountain with more questions than answers. How do you paint the howling wind with needle sharp snow pelting your face? Or the song of a currawong as it serenades the suns arrival and departure? Or the foreboding sensation that the trees are watching you, whispering mysteries of survival way-to selfless to understand? These intimate works are little snapshots trying to capture the vulnerability of the moment, while being acutely aware of our/my responsibility to protect its future.

These works were exhibited @ Despard Summer show 19-20

I was privileged to be selected for the above art prize, hung along side some incredible works.

My work titled “Birch trees … loveliest of all when naked” , oil on Masonite, 89cm tondo, was awarded the 2020 people’s choice, thank you people!

The three acquisitive winners of the 47th Muswellbrook Art Prize 2020 are as follows, huge congratulations to them all. Painting Prize - Marion Borgelt, 'Moon's Shimmer: No 1' 2019, pearlescent acrylics, acrylic, timber, Belgian linen, nails, vertical end frames, 212 x 210cm; $10,000 Works on Paper Prize - Paul White, 'Precarious Balance of the Phoenix Bloom (White Orchid)' 2019, pencil, 95 x 77cm; and $10,000 Ceramics Prize - Zoe Tjanavaras, 'Parched Abundance' 2019, reclaimed stoneware, underglaze and silica glaze, high temperature kiln fired, 32 x 26 x 26cm.

2018 BAY OF FIRES ART PRIZE WINNER

Oil on Masonite

Tondo 89cm

The Oxford Dictionary defines rambunctious as uncontrollably exuberant, even unruly. I have interpreted the theme “Our Island Inheritance” as a reflect of this - turbulently active, wildly boisterous, complex yet also commandingly beautiful. This work, Rambunctious brings together a cacophony of energetic marks into the unifying round form. Rambunctious doesn’t illustrate a set vista but rather offers the viewer a portal to reimagine our future.

Disruptive Epoch, 2018

Polarzonohedron

Materials: Oil on Masonite,

Dimensions:1500 x 950 x 950 mm

Penny Burnett and Sara Lindsay

Disruptive Epoch is the outcome of two divergent practitioners collaborating who are both interested in pushing spatial boundaries within their respective fields, painting and object design, into a cohesive new form.

Formally, this work is a Rhombic Polyhedral - a series of painted masonite rhombic shapes that have been sequenced into a complex arrangement of equal sides to develop a three-dimensional form. The process is one of meticulous planning, design, measurement and control.

The paradox of this process is the seemingly random, organic activation of the surface of the masonite with oil painting juxtaposed with the hard edge of geometry. The particular consistencies of the paint invite a visceral sense of engagement through its viscosity and agency. That is, the manner in which the substance has congealed in some passages suggests a suspension of time and weathered endurance. Conversely, in other passages there are quick gestural marks which could be read as toxic spills; slippery, moist, and pulsating. This tension between the agency of the surface and the control of the multi-faceted form is emphasised by the acuity of the geometry, bringing a strange synergy between structure, visceral engagement and spatial ambiguity.

Disruptive Epoch offers the viewer opportunities to not only consider the form as object but also the complex “in-between” space that is activated within the threshold of chaos and control.

Part of my initial proposal for the Jeju residency was to begin to explore the perceptions of place via digital media which increasingly is the media of choice. Unfortunately due to the shortness of time and language barrier I was unable to fulfil all of the collaborative side of my proposal, the experience has still enriched my own practice and left me with some unfinished questions.

Particularly this part of my original proposal…

“The similarities between Jeju and Tasmania underpin this project, both Islands, both renowned for pristine beauty, both culturally and historically unique from their associated mainlands, and both markets as the ultimate holiday experience. South Korea is highly technologically based country, and I am interested in the perception and approach of this island experience. Digital media where we snap, upload and # tag experiences appear to be more important than taking the time to linger in a location and allow it to reveal itself to the viewer. I am very aware that culturally I will be an outsider viewing location from essentially a tourist’s perspective. I am interested in how different visually this perspective is from a cultural insider’s perspective. I would like to collaborate with a (or more) Korean artist were we both go to significant Jeju cultural sites and essentially collect, discuss and experience the site. Specifically, I propose we both commit to do Ipad drawings of the site at the same time, not as artworks but as a form of data collection and visual interrogation. The control of this experiment being the use of the same medium (iPad drawing) and the same source material (landscape/significant Jeju site) but two different levels of cultural understanding and perception. I am really curious on how this extended visual interrogation of space will be similar and different. My proposal will then be with the collaborating artist that we exhibit these iPad drawings in parallel screens as looping videos at the conclusion of the residency to open up conversation on perception similarities and differences. It would be a speculative, work in progress discussion rather than a refined digital work.”