 | Geoffrey Notman’s paintings have a powerful sense of place and vernacular that is accurate, incisive as well as evocative and a distillation of a central and distinguishing aspect of New Zealand culture, politics and life.
The New Zealand landscape plays a pivotal role within Notman’s paintings. His images are fact loaded and detailed scenes that manage to capture a sense of place, time and season. Notman paints specific and recognisable locations within a rural New Zealand setting, and yet they are also iconographical vistas which all New Zealander’s can relate to. He creates his coastal scenes through a photomontage process, gathering images and combining them to capture the quintessential spirit of Kiwi culture and identity.
A strong focus on the New Zealand landscape is an established and traditional subject matter throughout New Zealand’s history. With respect to genre, there is a clear link between artists such as William Sutton and Rata Lovell-Smith who concentrated on the idea of man alone in the landscape. Notman is not concerned with the intervention of humans within the landscape, but with the strong relationship New Zealander’s share with their immediate environment.
Geoffrey Notman sees himself as having “a fierce sensory awareness of topographic ambience.”(1) He produces an archaeology of coastal life, where despite the absence of people, their presence and movements are implicit. Caravans, boats, tents and surfboards litter the canvas, conveying a sense of nostalgia for summer holidays spent by the beach. He communicates the “emotional link of objects in relation to the landscape.”(2) People are reduced to a life on the margins, referenced through symbols and signs, which provide inanimate objects with an emotional charge.
There is a pared down essence to Notman’s work, which can be seen as ” dominated by heat and light.” (3) By using enamacryl as a medium (an acrylic based paint that has the characteristics of an enamel finish), Notman produces a stark and precise palette, with sharp, clean outlines. The bright light, concentrated colours and finish akin to enamel, are reminiscent of artist Don Binney, where firm outlines of form create a motif-like coastal landscape.
Geoffrey Notman’s paintings create an intense awareness of time and location. While they evoke a narrative and nostalgia for a past era, his paintings also make a prescient observation on political and cultural issues that are pertinent to New Zealand’s present state. The current foreshore debate is an obvious case in point. Notman sees “issues of coastal access, foreign ownership and the passing of time,” to be “ a focus for these works.”(4)
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, 1961. Diploma of Visual Communication, Wellington School of Arts 1983. Following his graduation, Notman spent a number of years as a freelance illustrator and designer, which also gave him the opportunity to travel through Australia and Asia. In 1990 Notman was employed by the Wellington School of Art and Design as a part time lecturer. Geoffrey lives in Wellington and has painted full time since 2002.
(1) Artist’s Statement
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid
| |
