Drawing from the Blue Mountains: David Middlebrook
28 March – 10 May 2015
This Exposé exhibit features large scale multiple panel works with images that were drawn from The Blue Mountains National Park, Lake Lyell and The Gardens of Stone.
Middlebrook, who is known for his Australian desert landscapes paintings, in this exhibition draws the landscape that he lives in. Within this body of work he is trying to decipher the Blue Mountains landscape, seeing it anew, and relating it to his obsession with the unobtainable horizon. Middlebrook is a landscape painter and drawer that through his creative practice explores the concepts of isolation, alienation and the artist as explorer. He has a PhD in Fine Art and his research is in Australian Landscape Painting, he has a national exhibition history and his work is in many public and regional galleries. He lives and works in Medlow Bath, and is a Sessional Lecturer and tutor at School of Creative Arts, University of Newcastle.
The drawings contained in the work Folly 2013-5, ink on 450 sheets of paper, were initially done as way of ‘escaping’ the studio. Middlebrook, who paints between 6-8hours each day, would leave the studio and draw in the environment. Each of these drawings were done over a one hour period, the image that was laid down during this time is what is exhibited. This work then becomes a sum of parts and each reflecting the emotions experienced at the time of their creation. Together they become one work, a documentation of exploration. Using extreme detailed marks these drawings explore the ideas of microcosm and macrocosm of the landscapes surrounding us.
A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Exposé Program Exhibition
DAVID MIDDLEBROOK Folly (selection) 2013-15, ink on sheets of paper, various dimensions
