Long march for art trio

Borrowed from Brand Tasmania.

FYI - Willard Estate Logistics handled the logistics for this project.

By Penny Thow
Flags flying outside the Guandong Museum in China in late May and early June proclaimed a Tasmanian invasion. Artists Geoff Dyer, Ping Chen and Anton Holzner displayed 34 large oil paintings in the huge museum, which has 12 indoor exhibition halls and a 5,000 sq m outdoor sculpture garden. Thousands of Chinese art enthusiasts filed past the Tasmanian exhibition, which was largely the idea of Ping Chen who migrated from China to Tasmania. On a visit to the port city of Guangzhou last year, Ping Chen took examples of the three artists’ work and received a positive response from the museum director, who thought the paintings had unique Tasmanian qualities.
The Tasmanian link in the three artists’ works is complemented by their highly individual approaches. “Anton’s work is purely abstract and shares the same aspect of Chinese brush-ink painting, while Geoff’s work is very much Tasmanian landscape,” Ping Chen said. “My paintings are based on figures and are quite strong and emotional. Therefore, we selected our work for the exhibition with these aspects in mind.”
Dyer said he took into account the scale of the exhibition space when selecting paintings. “If you are going to exhibit with that much architectural space, you have to somehow form an equilibrium with it,” he said. “I sent eight large paintings, five of which can be hung in a series as an installation for maximum impact, and a couple of slightly smaller ones. They reflect my own concepts and motives. Our works have a connection in that they all hover between the semi-abstract and the abstract. We all have our own natural gestural aspects and our work is based on aesthetic principles, rather than narrative or illustration. Like Chinese calligraphy there is a little bit of natural handwriting throughout our work.”
Holzner said his paintings had been influenced by the Australian landscape. “My art is purely abstract,” he said. “Yet Australia has given me a lot of input, particularly the vast spaces, the primaeval landscape and the structures exposed by the sea. I always work from nature, but not directly. There is a continuing influence from abstract painters over the past 50 years, but I have carved out my own character. While we are all influenced by nature and the history of art, we are aiming to continue the evolution of painting.”
Ping Chen’s paintings focus on issues of humanity. “I try to develop a painting language which evolves the content,” he said. “For example in the Girl who’s Seventeen, the force of the liquid run-down from the empty background is destroying the struggling face, which visualises threats to human existence.”
The Chinese show was a non-selling exhibition and the artists largely funded the cost themselves. However Ping Chen said all three were grateful for assistance from a number of organisations. “Austrade has been a big supporter and has given us lots of advice and helped us connect to local and overseas businesses,” he said. “The Australian-China Council and other businesses provided financial assistance. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery director Bill Bleathman wrote a foreword for our 100-page book, while Domaine A Stoney vineyard provided high-quality local wines for the opening.”
Holzner said he hoped the exhibition would provide connections beyond Tasmania for both the artists and the State. “China is a good staging post for that, as it is one of the most important re-emerging nations in the world,” he said. “The exhibition and the book have the potential to encourage cultural and business exchanges with Tasmania.”