JAMES WILLEBRANT - THE JOURNEY HOME
Like many Australian artists Willebrant uses the Australian landscape as an inspirational springboard for his exploration and celebration of the Human Condition. His idiosyncratic response has seen the development of a style and vision, the uniqueness of which is immediately recognisable. He has nurtured and honed this original vision over many years; refusing to compromise it’s integrity, and above all respecting the work and the life of each painting.
His style has been variously labelled, Surreal, Naive, Pop Art, and even Existential...but no label can really encompass or describe the subtleties of this artists’ unique work. He paints the Australian landscape and captures it’s amazing light. He celebrates nostalgic Australian popular culture..... He paints the human form in this landscape and as we look at his “everyman-everywoman” figures, caught in a particular moment of ‘being’, we are brought back to some personal emotion, experience or memory.....Such a response needs no label or critical thesis...It just is..the essence of Good Art. It provokes, it stimulates, and it celebrates. It defines something about our essence, which is beyond words.
In 1986 James Willebrant moved from Balmain to The Blue Mountains, seeking new horizons, both literally and figuratively... The physically beautiful and mentally challenging atmosphere of the mountains saw his work expand both thematically and stylistically......And in the emerging artistic renaissance of The Blue Mountains he has been able to relive some of the excitement of the heady days of the Sydney Art Scene of the early 70’s.
In 2001 he purchased a country property West of the mountains and established a second studio there… The new environment of ‘The Farm’ has influenced the evolution of his style and vision…
“When I moved my studio to our ‘Dark Corner’ Farm just West of the Blue Mountains I expected the rural surroundings to affect and influence my work, which it did, not so much visually but physically. The textures of old weathered timbers found in the cattle yards, sheep pens and paddocks, wires and objects scuffed out of the dirt, detritus of years of life on the land, old boards, joists and noggins found whilst renovating the country studio….
These inspired me to use different media for my new work. There is a newfound freedom in the technique of incorporating found objects into the painted surface – the juxtaposition of these objects against the beauty of rubbed gold and silver finishes renders the ordinary object more gemlike, iconic and precious. The theme, the diving figure is an evolution of the swimmer in the landscape which has featured in my work for many years – always the romantic image of my childhood and the lifelong love affair of surfing the beaches of the Eastern Seaboard. These nostalgic images intertwined with the resurrection of a rural history have come together to create a personal iconography.”
