Jacqueline Balassa
Harbour, Trees and Hills
6 February – 3 March 2010
Opening Tuesday 9 February 6-8pm
Jacqueline Balassa
Out of the Window
oil on board 32×43.5cm
SOLD
sociability
(After the painting ‘Out of the Window’
by Jacqueline Balassa)
If we could moderate our anger at the house
that stole our sightline, framed by branches
of an ancient eucalypt, to the sandstone rock
where children fish for leatherjackets,
sharing space with lizards basking in the sun,
and celebrate instead the gumtree-harlequin
of bark, perhaps our neighbours could be friends.
It all depends on point of view.
© Norm Neill, 2010
Jacqueline Balassa’s small scale landscape paintings are intense, beautifully crafted and above all are acts of imaginative transformation.
The artist begins with pencil drawings on location which can be quick sketches or entail prolonged observation, often over a period of weeks, in places she loves such as Sydney’s Balmoral beach, in the rolling hills of Dungog , north west of Sydney, and even from the windows of her home in the bush above Sydney’s Middle Harbour.
Initially through the process of drawing and then as she slowly develops the paintings using her studies and her memories, Balassa finds equivalences in pattern, shape and colour that are both convincing and inventive to describe what she sees as poetically and interestingly as she is able.
Of equal importance to the artist, many of the paintings contain subtle, obliquely suggested narratives related to events she cares deeply about, sometimes of great sorrow such as the death of a dear friend or the breakdown of a marriage and at other times she celebrates the nurturing of family. In some works these narratives are carried by the gestures of small figures but also objects such as trees, buildings and even hills may be invested with significance.
Through her manipulation of compositional elements in ways inspired by a deep love of and intensive study of the Early Italian Primitive painters such as Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini, Fra Angelico and Domenicho Veneziano, Balassa aims to create works that have something of the magical feeling of this art – images that are both of the world as we ordinarily see it and at the same time, offer the viewer something more.
Jacqueline Balassa
October 2009
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Jacqueline Balassa
Couple in a Landscape
oil on board 56.5×84cm
midday
(After the painting ‘Couple in a Landscape’
by Jacqueline Balassa)We top a rise along a well-made path
to find ourselves beside a gnarly ficus
and a bird scuffing in the leafy mulch
for careless worms.Neatly tailored parkland stretches west
to a seashore bluff, formulated to the way
that minds of young suburban ramblers wish
all nature ought to be.Houses nestle to the east on the gentle angle
of a hill above a bay where men fish languidly
from a wooden boat, and leave imagined prey
quite undisturbed.Our eyes complete a circle of this semi-paradise
to rest upon a man and woman standing silently,
apart and back to back. We fight the urge
to ask each other why.© Norm Neill, 2009
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Jacqueline Balassa
Canopy
gouache on paper 35×28cm
SOLD
forest canopy
(After the painting ‘Canopy’
by Jacqueline Balassa)Artists paint,
poets write.
Trees fight for life© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
Angophoras and Houses
gouache on paper 35×28cm
SOLD
middle harbour
(After the painting ‘Angophoras and Houses’
by Jacqueline Balassa)The countryside is safe, domesticated wilderness
where terracotta roofs of houses harmonize
with wild angophoras’ particoloured sinuosities.This is a world of peppermint tea on terraces,
Brahms’ Lullaby played softly on the radio
and long silk skirts ruffled by a summer breezeuntil the evening shadows grow and raise again
the dormant truth that cockatoos now shrieking
to their distant roosts once flourished here.© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
Looking East #2
etching 17.5×24.5cm
SOLD
SOLD
aquatint
(After the etching ‘Looking East 2’
by Jacqueline Balassa)Images glow superficially;
imagination blazes
in between the lines.© Norm Neill, 2009
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Jacqueline Balassa
Forever
oil on board 40.5×57.5cm
harbour beach
(After the painting ‘Forever’
by Jacqueline Balassa)This view can’t last. A ripple silks across the bay
to kiss the beach. A south-east breeze wafts scent
of eucalyptus oil from Middle Head and fills
a dinghy’s sails. A couple pause to watch.A thousand years ago, another ripple whispered,
other winds brought eucalyptus oil, and people
surely recognized what we glimpse now:
eternity caught in a briefness of time.© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
Looking East #1
etching 17.5×24.5cm
SOLD
SOLD
philosophy 101
(After the etching ‘Looking East 1’
by Jacqueline Balassa)Black-and-white is dogma;
dialectics help us feel
the subtleties between.© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
Black Wattle and Small Beach
gouache on paper 28×35cm
SOLD
haiku
(After the painting ‘Black Wattle and Small Beach’
by Jacqueline Balassa)ripples hiss the sand
cicadas whisper-shed their skins
a whip bird cracks the air© Norm Neill, 2009
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Jacqueline Balassa
New Day
oil on board 32×43.5cm
early warning
(After the painting ‘New Day’
by Jacqueline Balassa)First light casts scant shade. A boat
straining at its anchor in the bay is empty
and my neighbour’s house with many rooms
has no windows.
There is no albatross to bring bad luck:
we make our fears ourselves.© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
At the end of the day
oil on board 32×43.5cmcarnivore
(After the painting ‘At the End of the Day’
by Jacqueline Balassa)Trees are quite Matisse
but the house is bland.
There’s theory or a secret here.Let’s pray for theory:
secrets are carnivorous.
They eat our souls.© Norm Neill, 2010
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Jacqueline Balassa
The Farewell (Balmoral)
oil on board 61×86.5cm
headland cycle
(After the painting ‘The Farewell – Balmoral’
by Jacqueline Balassa)Forty thousand years of Gamarugal women
gathered mussels here, while men fished
and watched a threadbare convoy shuffle past
to claim the land for God and George the Third.But the Gamarugal, like the ships now sheltering
in once-rejected southern bays, are gone
and we remain to speculate how future claimants
to ascendancy may justify what they have done.© Norm Neill, 2009
