amanda van gils drops by!

(click on the image so that you can read it!)

what a start to easter sunday!! amanda van gils, the australian artist featured right here just over a month ago paid a visit to the golden fish today! the team gathered from all corners of the golden fish world headquarters for this magical event and celebrated her visit with coffee and tasty cakes!! but just as soon as the celebration got going it was back to work as we discovered that there's even more of amanda's work that needs to be shared.

amanda paints small paintings that carry tremendous presence. you'll recall that i was blown away by her "speeding train" series: "i was instantly captivated by her ability to capture that really fine line between revealing the scene and the blurring of that scene as a camera sees it (or as you see it if you look directly outwards)".

where "speeding trains" literally blurs the line between reality and otherness, much of her other work juxtaposes the features and qualities of earth, air, and water blurring the lines that nominally exist between those states and creating something other. something very magical. something that compels the viewer into introspection. as amanda puts it: "my work aims to engage with the longstanding tradition of australian landscape painting yet offer a contemporary take on the genre. through my work i aim to explore our dynamic psychological relationship to the world around us."

for example, "midflight" interpolates the figure of a swimmer from below with a scene that i connect to as reminding me of long lonely canadian roads in mid-winter. the resultant image is not only visually intriguing but compels me to consider the metaphor. the sensation of being in something so clearly 'other' leaves me - like the swimmer - hovering. i want to compel these swimmers to move on over the hill. what's there? who's waiting? what is the viewer doing there?
here are some more sky swimmers.


my absolute favourite piece of amanda's work is in a series from 2007 depicting people on high wires. i can't share it here, but if you follow this link you can have a look at it! isn't it amazing!! it doesn't appear to be for sale but man can i ever connect to that image!!

amanda's been busy putting together a book and you really should head over to have a look at it and maybe even buy a copy.
start here.

if you want to know more about amanda then "art interview" carries a really nice interview with her right here. "art re-source" has another good interview with amanda that you can read right here. to see pictures at an exhibition go here.

amanda also writes a blog on which you can see new works that you can buy, read a bit of what she's thinking and doing, and visit other artists through the links she provides.

remember, if you're interested in amanda's work and would like to buy one of her paintings, all you have to do is head over to her redbubble site where she has some really excellent work that you can either drool over or dig into your wallet for. a more complete portfolio of her work can be viewed right here.