Rugged New South Wales country is given a contemporary twist by award-winning artist Joanna Logue.
Story By Iain Dawson
Upon entering Joanna Logue’s studio, an immediate calm settles across the atmosphere. Large canvases in various states of completion are hung for contemplation and orderly piles of sketchbooks and photographs give a glimpse into the artist’s process. Joanna’s paintings are tied inextricably to the landscape she inhabits. Works painted in Braidwood, in southern New South Wales, shimmer, the afternoon heat glowing directly from the canvas, grass bleached into pale straw by the relentless summer sun. A veil of mist and moody filtered light draws the viewer into the landscapes painted in Parkes and Oberon, in the central west New South Wales. Joanna is immersed in these New South Wales locales, living between studios in New England, Sydney and coastal Shoalhaven. Her artistic language is keenly developed and conveys a truth about these uniquely Australian landscapes that transcends the specifics of place in her paintings. “My Oberon landscape is very personal and particular to me and I have worried about that, that it wouldn’t appeal,” Joanna says. “But because it is so personal it has become universal in its appeal.” Whether she’s painting a dusty track in Bungendore, near Canberra, or a stand of conifers out of Parkes, Joanna works from a large collection of photographs and builds up sketches, moving through to small studies in oil then on to larger canvases, sometimes up to four metres wide.
This story excerpt is from Issue #53
Outback Magazine: June/July 2007
