In and Out of Focus
Jay Sykes
Presented by Jay Sykes
Opening event:
31 August 2023, 6:00PM
Daily opening times:
1 – 25 September, 2023
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Variations to Daily Opening Times :
Closed Sundays
“In and Out of Focus” addresses emotion, visual impairment, memory and landscape, presenting oil paintings of Tasmanian scenes that are both emotionally in and visually out of focus.
“In and Out of Focus” addresses emotion, visual impairment, memory and landscape. The pieces involved are both emotionally in and visually out of focus – the brushstrokes are intended the capture the enigmatic ‘feel’ of a landscape, where as the departure from realism hints at the fuzzy appearance of a scene viewed without visual aids.
The medium of oils was chosen because of its tendency to build a three-dimensional surface for a two-dimensional work, lending a kind of realism to even extremely abstract depictions. Oil paint also has the advantage of extremely evident brushstrokes, which have been executed differently for each landscape to represent the emotional quality of the place. This technique also hints at the ‘texture’ with which short-sighted eyes perceive the world around them, which is always the impression left in the artist’s brain.
Among complete paintings are unfinished works, ‘fallen’ to the floor, some with only a fraction of the canvas covered in paint. This is intended to add to the impression that the exhibition occurs somewhere within the artist’s mind, the unfinished pieces representing the degradation of memory over time.
