GALLERY OF MURMURATION

What happened when Stephen Hawking’s left this mortal plain was he finally content. Such beautiful intelligence trapped in a tortured human body. Or was his content released into the universe like sparkling stardust. Was it dispersed across all humankind to make us a little smarter, wiser…let’s hope so?

Too often we gaze at the stars and wonder.

Other worlds undiscovered, untraveled unplundered are waiting …you can see them from the corner of your eye if you really try. Ocean is deep is a peek into the deep-water environment where aquatic creatures create incredible synchronised ballets – a hive mind shimmering and shining in unison.

The palette captures the glittering fish, the sunshine penetrating the ocean surface and the unknown depths.

The Aurora is a constant in the work of Gina Raisin. She continues to draw upon this natural phenomenon because of its unwavering mystery and beauty. During April 2018 Tasmania was treated to some of the most spectacular Aurora, which could even be viewed from suburban Hobart. In Aurora Harmonica Gina has captured the wild beauty of the Aurora in a city setting. The light show of the Aurora dims and swallows all manmade attempts to control the view. Imagine if there were no modern white noise. Maybe if you listened closely you would here the music of the Aurora spilling over the landscape.

Sentinel One is the biggest tree on the horizon from the window of Gina’s studio. This mammoth deciduous tree keeps time and rhythm as Earth spins and tilts through its seasons. Every day Sentinel One offers up  a majestic display – sometimes intense stillness touched by brilliant sunshine, other days it is  a dervish of swirling leaves and arching branches screaming to the skies.

This view of Sentinel One captures the cusp of summer into autumn as the tree prepares for inevitable change.

Standing in a paddock you look up into the pale, pastel sky and see an incomprehensible aerial ballet. Wing tip to wing tip the birds soar in the most spectacular and awe-inspiring ballet of precision and harmony. To the bird in the middle of the soaring flock is the uniform beating of the wings like a piston in a factory. Here from your vantage point you cant here the mechanics of this natural phenomena it is a silent ethereal performance.

In keeping with the theme of murmuration pulse is an exploration of the human vessel. Imagine the blood in your body racing to repair a wound. Slick and red  - moving with efficiency to solve the problem,

Can you see the plasma surging to its destination? This intense red palette has been used it previously in the award winning Needham Religious Art Prize painting Ojo De Dios and Anne’s Tibetan Cherry Tree from the Haiku exhibition.

Over glazing with alizarin and magenta oil lifts and intensifies the red hues to reinforce the vibrancy and importance of blood for human existence.

Recently I have been thinking about Life on Mars and its many permutations. David Bowies’ howl to Major Tom – “Can you hear me Major Tom?....... can you hear me” Has Bowie been reunited in another plateau with his astronaut hero. And then my mind took to Elon Musk and his outstanding, Howard Hughes’esque venture. Travel for everyone to Mars…

I look to the heavens and ask when is it my turn?

In 2017 Gina Raisin saw and heard a performance by Brittany Van Zeil an honours students of the James Morrison Jazz Academy of UniSA. The suite of music performed was created to describe Britt’s journey through South Africa earlier in that year. Gina was impressed by the music and asked Britt if she was happy for her to use the music to create new artwork for her exhibition. The relationship between musician and artist became stronger as a result of this partnership. The piece Rondavel particularly inspired Gina and her response is filled with the colour and movement Britt’s South African adventure evoked.

Jazz music has played an important role in the development of the body of work “murmuration”.  The soundtrack of Gina’s childhood thanks to her dad was Ackerbilk, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Louise Armstrong. When Listening to music whilst painting it drives her brush and informs colour selections. Whilst listening to a wide range of Jazz music on Spotify and Brittany Van Zeil’s original compositions the geometry of the imagery and the deep blues of mystery were created in response to the musical patterns. Gina decided to orient this skinny canvas as a portrait to reinforce the idea of music building to a crescendo.

Wasserstrudel was a word Gina recently discovered at the Pippilotti Rist exhibition in Sydney. This German word means vortex, Gina says that just by saying you could be sucked into that very vortex. Gina’s Wasserstrudal is a warped view of the existence of black holes. Imagine if every side show clown with gaping mouth wasn’t just waiting to swallow the ball, but a portal to another dimension. And why does the portal have to exist as a black void.  Imagine if the Wasserstrudal drew you into a realm of hotly coloured reggae rhythm spirals drawing you into dimensions unknown.

Photographs by Marcus Jones