For artist Jane Guthleben, the tradition of Still Life painting is as relevant today as it has been for centuries. The brevity of life symbolised by a bloom that will soon wilt and wither, decay suggested by an insect, knowledge indicated by a book; the symbolism conveyed in such paintings is a coded communication between artist and viewer which is steeped in history. Guthleben’s focus on the natural world – and Australia’s particularly – through Still Life painting, shines attention on this genre, and through it she weaves historical narratives and current concerns important to her, such as climate change and threats to the environment.
SEA FLOWER is an exhibition of 28 paintings that includes Guthleben’s elaborate Still Life compositions of Australian native flora, birds, shells and insects. It also includes some small seascapes that appear as backdrops in her larger compositions, as well as studies of flora from her daily walks where she lives in Sydney.
In SEA FLOWER, Guthleben presents Baroque-style Still Lifes, where improbable arrangements of East Coast flora are situated with their backs to rocky headlands and views out to sea. Their opulent compositions defy gravity and logic, too heavy, short-stemmed and short-lived to function in a vase, teetering on rickety three-legged tables or draped table cloths in sumptuous ambiguous settings that are not described. Guthleben invents grandiose urns, which she further adorns with art historical references, such as paintings she admires or illustrations from Natural History.
Guthleben likes to play in the past to make sense of the present. The flora she has been referencing in recent series of paintings derive from the 1770 Endeavour voyage up the East Coast of Australia, botanised by Joseph Banks. Birds in her works were painted by convicts in the earliest days of the colony, and she borrows from their watercolours and etchings which are held in the State Library of NSW. Landscapes are often appropriated from colonial painters and inserted into backgrounds or onto vases to add an element of portent – we know how the landscape has been altered in just 250 years. In DUTCH STILL LIFE WITH 1770 FLORA, SYDNEY BIRD PAINTER WALLPAPER, AND A COUPLE OF EGGS for example, a tower of flora sits before a fictitious wallpaper comprised of bird illustrations made by anonymous convicts, known collectively as Sydney Bird Painter. Some of these birds are already extinct. The urn features a painting of Mr and Mrs Andrews by English painter Gainsborough. The well-dressed hunter and his wife are landed gentry – landlords – known to make their money from collecting rent; a dig at the current housing crisis.
The title SEA FLOWER suggests many meanings: that our landmass is surrounded by rising oceans; that our history was determined by the world-travelling botanist; that nature is constantly challenged and evolving, and as a homonym (Sea/See Flower). SEA FLOWER marks Jane Guthleben’s 6th solo exhibition with Edwina Corlette.
