Ben Ohau

Ben Ohau, by Mackenzie-based artist Belinda Weir, features 17 stunning oil paintings, which explore the beautiful Ohau landscape and its hypnotic environment.

Ohau, unlike other lakes in the area, is broad and open. It is a vast old platter for the sky. Although mountains rise up all around, they do not crowd the lake or lean oppressively over the diminutive visitor.

It is an environment which demands more than one glance and it is as though the power which occupies this valley shrugs off the limited attention span of the tourist. Many come, as they have for years and years, even generationally, perhaps drawn by the mysterious ability it has to challenge and surprise, unendingly. A few stay. It seems that these very strong and individual people have a reason and purpose to be here.

An artist looks in, as little by little the Ohau seasons unfold. Every day (in fact every hour) the atmosphere and light changes. A reflection on the lake that appears before you now, will not come again. It takes many missed opportunites to learn it. The lesson being, to never go anywhere without a camera, and where possible to paint on the spot, in the open.

It is a challenge to be here. This is one of the reasons it is magnetic to me. It just so big, can one get it? Can I pocket one of the feelings it engenders? So maybe this audacious attempt promotes the same drive in a person here as any artist anywhere… be they in a loft in New York or a gallery in some capital somewhere.

One may recognise the mountain, but can the passion it endorses be seen in the art? These queries defy a personal style and the place encourages the continual evolution of the attempt. I could live several lives here and not capture it all.

Here, I feel that intellectual pretentions are ground away and hopefully the result is something genuine. Every day is different. Every painting is different.

One artist may visually thrash around with colour, another the buttery texture of the paint and another may miss it entirely. Every now and then a painting will come as easily as does the wind. One cannot paint in this landscape without developing a care towards it, a haunting and a hope that it retains its wildness. As an artist, dealing in the visual re-presentation of the power resident in this country, I cannot pursue the stillness of it at a rush or in a worried state. So there is a great deal to learn. There is so much to be done here.

The greatest assurance I have then, is when a local, a long-timer of the highlands, tells me that a painting is accurate, true to the place. The paintings here are a sampling of that attempt.

Ohau is showing in the basement gallery of the Forrester Gallery on 12 December until February 2015. Some of the works are for sale.

 

When

Location

Forrester Gallery