Tim Storrier
Heat Line & Haze, 2022
Signed 'STORRIER' (lower right)
Acrylic on canvas
42.13 x 96 ins (107 x 244cm) (Artwork size)
Copyright The Artist
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'In February on the plains of New South Wales the heat lies shimmering on the horizon. Snakes leaves serpentine tracks across the sandy road; cattle stand breathless under the shade...
"In February on the plains of New South Wales the heat lies shimmering on the horizon. Snakes leaves serpentine tracks across the sandy road; cattle stand breathless under the shade of sparse trees. You can walk a mile to the creek for a swim and then walk back, hotter than before. Sundown usually brings relief from the heat, but sometimes the night stretches out hot and still till dawn.
Before television,radio plays and dramatic serials fired the imagination with the exploits of brave detectives and cowboys rescuing sultry women. The local cinema showed English and American ‘pictures’,‘Cowboys and Indians’ endlessly galloping after each other,shooting and killing in bloodless tumbles. John Ford made Monument Valley a familiar landscape ‘down under’.
My father once took me away from the fire to look up at the black sky to watch Sputnik dawdle across; the music he was playing was Beethoven’s 5th. On other occasions it would be Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Sibelius, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Frank Sinatra –seductive, beautiful music. Deutscher Gramaphone and my father showed me all that. I was very fortunate.
Some days my mother painted: gum trees, clouds over parched fields, still lives influenced by the school of Paris. She decorated the homestead with reproductions of Renoir and Degas and some very odd original paintings of people walking down avenues in the Paris rain.
The papers would come and I would endlessly pour over photographs of English princesses. The Saturday Evening Post displayed American images of unimaginable luxury on its glossy pages –futuristic cars, highways, appliances, houses with beautifully dressed women smiling as they served their be suited husbands. Modernism was progress and my visual order hadn’t yet been disrupted by the inexplicable distortions of Pablo Picasso.
The question of influence for a young artist is complicated. Works of great beauty by truly great artists come into your consciousness as you grow. Some pass by and others become etched in memory. Looking back, it seems important to be intimidated by such greatness as it is a path to improvement. Time is the great decider as you find your fellow travellers.
The creation of space on a canvas is imprecise,but the painting of distance gives one an almost primal delight.The distance is painted using blues (ultramarine, cobalt, cerulean) with the mediation of alizarin crimson, burnt sienna and some yellows. The pleasure of painting is that the surface moves back and forward in front of the eye as you tone it with warm and cold paint."
Tim Storrier, 2022
Before television,radio plays and dramatic serials fired the imagination with the exploits of brave detectives and cowboys rescuing sultry women. The local cinema showed English and American ‘pictures’,‘Cowboys and Indians’ endlessly galloping after each other,shooting and killing in bloodless tumbles. John Ford made Monument Valley a familiar landscape ‘down under’.
My father once took me away from the fire to look up at the black sky to watch Sputnik dawdle across; the music he was playing was Beethoven’s 5th. On other occasions it would be Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Sibelius, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Frank Sinatra –seductive, beautiful music. Deutscher Gramaphone and my father showed me all that. I was very fortunate.
Some days my mother painted: gum trees, clouds over parched fields, still lives influenced by the school of Paris. She decorated the homestead with reproductions of Renoir and Degas and some very odd original paintings of people walking down avenues in the Paris rain.
The papers would come and I would endlessly pour over photographs of English princesses. The Saturday Evening Post displayed American images of unimaginable luxury on its glossy pages –futuristic cars, highways, appliances, houses with beautifully dressed women smiling as they served their be suited husbands. Modernism was progress and my visual order hadn’t yet been disrupted by the inexplicable distortions of Pablo Picasso.
The question of influence for a young artist is complicated. Works of great beauty by truly great artists come into your consciousness as you grow. Some pass by and others become etched in memory. Looking back, it seems important to be intimidated by such greatness as it is a path to improvement. Time is the great decider as you find your fellow travellers.
The creation of space on a canvas is imprecise,but the painting of distance gives one an almost primal delight.The distance is painted using blues (ultramarine, cobalt, cerulean) with the mediation of alizarin crimson, burnt sienna and some yellows. The pleasure of painting is that the surface moves back and forward in front of the eye as you tone it with warm and cold paint."
Tim Storrier, 2022
