rm schuurmans-medek
There seemed to be at least two options as to how a viewer might experience the paintings by Robyn Schuurmans-Medek (RM). Their abstract appearance and traditional format suggested that they were non-representational gestures, through which some un-representable object in the mind could be acquired.1 This approach would perhaps require a traditional formal analysis of abstract painting. However, this beholder prefers a different approach to perception, one that does not necessarily favour the eyes. An alternative might be to consider the paintings as surfaces across which the viewer engages in a more bodily, social experience, 'not as one reads a book, but as one reads the weather or the body language of a friend' or listens when a house frame creaks in the wind.2
Collectively, the works seem to represent various interior aspects of architectural dwellings. But rather than describing an empty space within architectural structures, each painting articulates a sensually veiled enclosure, which has been imbued with bodily presence. lt seems as if the squarish blocks of colour in the paintings reflect on at least two layers of housing. Colour is applied in soft, lush fields that presume a housing of flesh, which frequently overlaps with impressions of harder walled surfaces, aspects of a house that threatens to enclose a body. Through the application of a deeply layered painting technique, the works are saturated with a sense of physical attention. The limited palette of the works, which focuses on muted green, yellow and orange hues, introduces the viewer to fields or blocks of paint that are well infused with the colours in RM's house and surrounding Australian native bushland.
The room titled Presence differs from the room of works titled Jazz