Summary
Artist statement
The Fountain is part of a recent sequence of oil paintings that represent the fountain image and have been informed by apocalyptic, hallucinogenic and visionary allusions. My collection of source material, derived from photographs of the fountains outside the NGV, other civic fountains and cinematic imagery, has been combined and transformed in order to reveal the psychological and subconscious currents surrounding the fountain as an object and image in the 21st century.
For me the image of the fountain in a modern city — specifically Melbourne during a drought — is loaded with anxiety and ambivalence. A fountain can be magnificent but is also highly vulnerable: its viability dependant on a plentiful supply of water (in some cases these days recycled water). If recycled water cannot be sourced then the fountain can be switched off and becomes a curious object devoid of function and situated out of time.
My paintings of fountains might be said to behave in a similar way — the optical presence of layered and densely pigmented oil paint can be regarded as having a stupefyingly beautiful, if ambivalent optical presence. Whilst making these paintings I am attempting to find equivalents in static colour and drawn form for the sublime noise and visceral atmosphere generated within the vicinity of a large civic fountain.
The paintings aren’t really depictions of specific fountains but could instead be regarded as essays in representing a form of ‘false-colour imaging’ of the psychological aura that a fountain might transmit.
Steven Rendall, 2010
