ARTISTIC VOYEUR: BRETT WEIR AT LEONARD MATTIS STUDIO

By Benjamen Judd

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We love to give props to Australian artists. Specifically ones that capture the essence of the Australian landscape in all its uncanny glory. Particularly artists that we are personally interested in seeing hanging on our own walls and Brett Weir is one such an artist. Now showing in a new exhibition until Monday, May 12 at the Leonard Mattis Studio, Weir reflects on his old home as it is seen from one who, despite growing up here, looks back on his homeland through the lens of time. The final result is a peculiar one – utterly familiar yet completely alienating at the same time. It is a brutally honest portrayal of our beautiful island, in equal measures breathtaking as it can be terrifying.

We had the luck to chat to Brett ahead of his opening and discuss his work. Erudite and very much aware of his skills, it was an enlightening chat about that touches on the role nostalgia plays in the making of art.

Benjamen Judd: Tell me a little more about your background – what drove you to become a painter?

Brett Weir: Actually I majored in Drawing at the V.C.A in Melbourne. However I have always had a deep interest in painting – a preoccupation that began when I would accompany my aunty to en plein air painting excursions as a boy; we worked in watercolours then.

Following my studies I set off on what would become a decade of more or less constant travel, never staying anywhere longer than six months. Most of the time I was living pretty rough, hitching around the country with a backpack, fishing rod and light-weight bivvy and sleeping out. I kitted up with a set of primary acrylics and had small panels of plywood or MDF cut to the approximate format of the cigar-box paintings by the Heidelberg artists. I painted on the move, drew in sketchbooks…whatever or whoever I happened to be in the company of. Once I found an abandoned house in the Queensland bush and there I made some large canvases, but mostly I was limited to making what I could carry with me and using quick-drying paints.

Then, on a camping trip when I was in my late 20’s, a good friend, a painter who is older than I am and more organised, invited me to use his oil paints – thanks Robsky! It was an instant love affair and I have been painting in oils ever since.

What eventually gave you the idea (and desire) to relocate to Zurich?

After the ten years of constant travel, I had developed a hankering to nest. I had been working a summer job for a wealthy man in the countryside of Scotland, doing his garden and whatever maintenance he required, and then painting at night in my half of the mansion. Following that I had a five-week job lined up in Zurich at a theatre festival. It was there that I met my big love, Natasa. I extended my trip a few months. She then came to visit in Australia, I followed her back and we have been going between the two places ever since – which is about as close as I seem to get to settling. Zurich has a very rich art scene, is centrally located in Europe and is generally a fabulous place to live.

What artists have influenced your work over the years? (Personally, there are two artists in particular that come to mind when I look through your current works – namely, Arthur Streeton and Gerhard Richter.)

You have picked two of a handful of favourites right off the bat. I am also influenced by the work of Bill Henson, Goya, Manet, as well as friends and contemporaries such as David Jolly and William Mackinnon. I have been seeing a lot of really strong painting in Australia lately – it is very exciting!

Can you tell me a little more about the collection of work that you are exhibiting? When you take in to account the stark quality and the size of the paintings, it is a rather intimate collection.

The work in this show is quite personal in that it addresses directly the place that I have always called home, but am increasingly ambivalent about – specifically in terms of things like environmental policy, the prevailing consumerist, churn-it-burn-it attitude and rising costs of living (a factor crucial to artistic freedom). These paintings continue the celebration of light and space that I have been exploring over the last five years or so, but are peppered with reservation.

Throughout the collection, you fluctuate between a rural Australian landscape to an almost purely abstract surface – can you explain what the connection between the two is for you?

The impetus for the works that appear figurative is the same for the apparently abstract pieces. In the less recognisable paintings I have simply pushed an image beyond the limits of the representational. In more or less erasing the recognisable aspects of a landscape I am attempting to reference the anxiety I feel at my place in world, and humanity’s relationship to the land we inhabit.

Brett Weir is now showing at Leonard Mattis Studio, 8 Fitzroy Place Surry Hills until May 12. Prices are available on request.