It’s a well-worn cliché to say we live in uncertain times. But the events of the past five years have left many of us feeling like these are the noisiest and most chaotic times of our lives.
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As global turmoil surges to new heights every day, it is interesting to see how, in the art world at least, curators have been turning to showing works imbued with a deep sense of quietness and calm.
As former Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) Director Rhana Devenport said of her gallery’s then record-breaking survey exhibition of tonalist painter Clarice Beckett’s work in 2021, “At a time of regrowth and recalibration, here are these incredibly modest and physically small paintings that possess tremendous power.”
Evidently, AGSA’s “modest” Clarice Beckett exhibition proved the gallery’s most successful ticketed solo show by an Australian artist in its history, and is still referred to by AGSA staff as its “velvet blockbuster”.
For esteemed 81-year-old Western Australian abstract painter Trevor Vickers, whose similarly Quiet Paintings are now on display in a major solo exhibition at WA Art Collective, our emotional pull to these seemingly ‘quiet’ works extends beyond their softly-spoken surface-level aesthetics.
As Vickers tells ArtsHub, his commitment to abstraction over the past six decades has allowed him great insight into the complex reasons we are drawn to these works – especially during turbulent times.
Inexplicable allure of abstract art
Vickers’ career as an abstract painter is extensive, including early career shows at Sweeney Reed’s Strines Gallery (Melbourne) and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) – most notably as part of the NGV’s ground-breaking 1968 exhibition The Field (an exhibition it paid tribute to in The Field Revisited show, in 2018).
But, as Vickers explains, after decades of working in abstraction, he feels no closer to reaching the limits of what the genre can offer – both to himself as an artist, and for viewers of his work.
As the artist tells ArtsHub, “It’s like a poem that you read or hear, and maybe there is a sentence in it with around eight words, and halfway through that sentence, you realise it has opened another door to a great big room, [because] there’s so much more in it.
“That’s what painting is for me,” Vickers continues. “It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been doing this, the medium is still opening itself up, and I still feel I’ve got an enormous amount to do.”
Clearly, Vickers’ creative output shows no sign of slowing – even as he enters a phase of life that sees many others deep into their retirement. Yet his energetic practice has little to do with what he feels he wants to ‘say’ to viewers through his art, and more to do with what they bring to their individual interpretations of each work.
“I think all the important stuff that goes on in painting is going on in the observer’s mind,” Vickers says.
“It’s not necessarily for the artist to illustrate something – although they can – but when you perceive a painting, you call on your past experience as an individual, and my work has always attempted to get into that area,” he adds.
As Vickers reflects on the driving forces in his own work, he is also able to cast light on why he thinks artists like Clarice Beckett – whose style is also linked to abstraction – took a similar path to his own.
“Clarice’s work goes beyond description. It goes far beyond being, for example, a 1920s motor car travelling down a misty road, or whatever it happens to be [depicted on the canvas],” he explains.
“There is always much more going on in your brain than in the picture in Clarice’s works. They trigger such wonderful thought patterns – every one of them.”
But Vickers notes that Beckett, and others who were also part of what was seen as a radical artistic circle, faced backlash from their peers and critics for breaking with stylistic conventions.
“[In the 1910s and 20s] the Meldrum group were really punished for moving away from accurate description,” Vickers explains.
“In other words, they were punished for leaving their work a bit loose, and for leaving it up to your brain to work it out.
“But that’s one of the aspects I really like – that the painter has put together some ingredients, and the translation [on the part of the viewer] is usually quite open.”
Turn to abstraction a sign of solace-seeking?
When asked about audiences’ responses to his own abstract works – especially most recently against the backdrop of heightening global chaos – Vickers is reluctant to pinpoint any specific reasons people are being drawn to his style.
“It’s a bit like trying to describe somebody else’s mediation practices, which is a bit difficult, because it’s highly individual,” he tells ArtsHub.
“But I also feel there is a [common] visual language that we all understand,” he continues.
“Because [in our daily lives] we all have the visual ability to quickly pick out the important bits [of what we see] and dismiss the unimportant bits. And that [visual] ability we have, goes way beyond our literary abilities.”
So, could it be that these inexplicable, possibly subconscious thought processes that are triggered by Vickers’ ‘quiet’ abstract works form a large part of why we are drawn to them? Especially if our daily lives feel increasingly hard-lined and proscriptive?
As Vickers says, “It’s always a case of what you’re seeing is what you’re seeing.
“Because the mental process that goes on when you are looking at anything is that there is a train of thought there, and that train of thought has been tempered by your previous experiences in life.
“As Frank Stella famously said, ‘What you see is what you see.’ I think that is a very important aspect of painting,” he concludes.
Trevor Vickers // Quiet Paintings, showing at WA Art Collective until 26 October 2024.
