Rosalie Rigby

Profile

Artworks

Exhibits

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Birthplace

Canberra

Lives in

Armidale, NSW Australia

Works in

Painting

Website

http://www.rosalierigby.com

Tags

mixed-media, landscape, modern, painting, abstract

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Statement

Artist's Statement

My painting reflects my ongoing relationship with the countryside in which I live. In this sense it is local and in the application of the paint it is immediate. My working process may include drawing, using collage, representational paint sketches etc prior to starting the main painting. These are done not to obtain a preliminary sketch which is then to be used on the canvas but as a way of increasing a sensitivity and perception of line, colour and the sense of the place at that particular time. Paul Klee phrased this beautifully when he talked of "taking a line for a walk". It is by taking this walk that the knowable world is investigated and absorbed. My work can be seen as semi-abstract but all painting is an abstraction as a three-dimensional world becomes a two-dimensional one. The division between an object and it's background is an arbitrary outline determined not by our naïve seeing but rather by our knowing. This art as derived from the known became part of the impetus behind Picasso's and Bracque's art.

My artwork began with working in fibre. I worked from a studio at Salamanca Place in Hobart. There I was a handweaver and made articles which I sold and exhibited. My aim was then to produce an article that was as beautiful as the raw material used. I suppose that is the reason, also, why I prefer to work in oils. The richness and smoothness of the oil imparts a beauty to a work. For me acrylic is usually a struggle to make something beautiful from an ordinary medium. This is, of course, a purely personal preference as many other artists achieve wonderful results working with acrylic.

I was born in Canberra and have since lived in Melbourne, Hobart and Northern New South Wales. From living in Hobart with its blue skies and lush green hills I moved to Armidale, then to Moree then to a semi-rural place just outside of Tamworth. Now I have returned to Armidale and look rorward to continuing to reconnect with this landscape. In Armidale I began painting as this art form seemed to best express my relationship to my environment. The land and its use was a dominant element in my new rural environment. The granite and eucalypt colours of the Armidale area contrast with the deep browns of the Black Soil Plains and the worn, rounded yellow hills of the dry Tamworth countryside. The colours and shapes of the land reflect the underlying geography, the farming use of the land and the effects of the climate on vegetation.

I have returned to Armidale and am reconnecting with this countryside's elements. I love the granite outcrops where the freezing of water and it's consequent expansion causes sections of the boulders to split cleanly. I love the greys and grey-greens of the scrub and the bushland. The gorges remind me of the history of the land and it's grandeur. Simple things such as the wattle in flower growing from the sheer rock face of a gorge are an artist's joy. It is from both the general sweep and the beautiful detail that my painting originates.

Curriculum Vitae

Address

10 Arundel Drive

Armidale, NSW 2350

Ph: 0427608332

www.rosalierigby.com

www.rosalierigby.blogspot.com

Solo Exhibitions

2007 Doggett Street Gallery, Brisbane

2006 Moree Gallery, Moree

2006 Gig Gallery, Sydney

2005 Gallery 126, Armidale