Deep In Land
Artist Jo Bertini has a new exhibition in America
exploring land, place and belonging.
“Breath of the Last Wild River”, 80x80”, oil & iridescent pigments on French polyester canvas, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Exclusive Interview with artist
Jo Bertini
To celebrate Jo’s new exhibition, we caught up with the artist.
How long have you been exploring the desert and why?
I’ve always been interested in the desert from my family and the stories my grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles all told. I come from a family of desert dwellers, from Broken Hill, a frontier mining town in the far north west of New South Wales, near the South Australian border, in the outback. My grandmother used to tell me stories of hiding in the red sand dunes with her best friend an Aboriginal Afghani girl. Growing up my mother would give me the books of Freya Stark, Rose Macaulay and Gertrude Bell to read. I was corrupted into desert dreaming from a very young age and encouraged to be an independent artistic adventurer. I have been fascinated by and have explored different deserts of Australia and the world for most of my life.
Call and response from the last frontier. 58” x 56” Iridescent pigments & oil on French polyester canvas, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Describe the physical difference in your body and psyche when you leave behind the noise of the city and move into the quiet of the desert?
There is an aboriginal expression about the desert that is completely accurate, "the desert right sizes you." The desert allows you to be free of the constraints of ego and the idea of any audience to your life. Desert places are older than human history. Humankind's sedimentary layer in the geological record is very small, very thin. Deserts have a huge depth of substance and will continue to evolve and contribute to the planet long after our species has disappeared from the record.
Being in the desert has a remarkable and renowned quality of enabling us to transcend our material world. These desolate dry places teach us acceptance and patience. We are all connected by one long, evolving story. Every particle of us is part of every other particle of the natural world. The desert is indifferent to our personal lives. It requires that you leave your ‘self’ and your body and become part of something much bigger, linked to an evolving intrinsic source.
How does this translate in your work?
My work is interested in an understanding of the unique and fragile beauty of the world's most remote and isolated desert landscapes and the peoples and cultures they cradle in their heart. I am dedicated to introducing a feminine perspective into the archived historical context of deserts.
These special lands have an ‘essential nature’, simultaneously invoking a sense of the vastness of space and a personal intimacy while retaining a fierce, unexpected wildness. They are places of extraordinary intrinsic value and interconnectedness. Over many decades I have come to know deserts intimately as sacred sites, sites of transformation, mysterious lands which have always housed creative human imaginings.
My paintings become a type of elegy, a tribute, a love song, extending the traditions of landscape painting and oral storytelling. Trees can talk - mountains can move - rivers bury secrets - grains of sand weave myth, knowledge and culture from past to present.
Blood moon Birthing Tree 38” x 38”, Oil on Belgian linen, 2021, Courtesy of the artist.
Can you talk about your process? From idea to finished painting?
In terms of my process I do a lot of field work in the desert working directly from the landscape or the source, as my inspiration. I work fast 'en situ' in water soluble paints, mostly gouache but also watercolours, inks, pencils and graphite. (I cant use photographs as I find them too limited and superficial and the camera doesn't see selectively, with personality as an artist sees). I then use all my sketchbooks and studies as my source material in the studio to work on ideas and interests for large oil paintings, which is a much slower and torturous process, so the paintings progress away from the source material and evolve into something 'other', unique and original artworks.
Who are the artists that inspire you & why?
There are so many artists that inspire me, from visual artists, writers and musicians to performers and just anyone who is imaginative and creative. I am very inspired by writers, especially poets and I adore music and find it helps my creative imaginings. I am inspired everyday by the artists who produce amazing works despite the odds against them, the hardships in their lives, Frieda Kahlo, Sargy Mann, indigenous artists working on cardboard and grinding their own pigments, Mable Juli, Kitty Kantilla, artists working with disabilities .
I love petroglyphs, pictographs and cave paintings. The wonderful creativity and colours of children's artworks, the post impressionists and early European modernist painters, Henri Matisse (the master), Bonnard, Vuillard, Picasso of course as well as the San Francisco Bay Area artists, Richard Diebenkorn, Milton Avery, the English St Ives group, Patrick Heron, Ivon Hitchens, Craigie Aitchison there are just so many... and so many of my contemporaries doing amazing works.
Artists always inspire other artists.
Basin of indifference. 38” x 40”, Oil on French polyester canvas, 2020. Courtesy if the artist.
Deep In Land
Dark sky park approaching nowhere. 80” x 80”, Oil on French polyester canvas, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
May 4 - July 15, 2022
Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery
Ent Center for the Arts
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Deep in Land explores the extraordinary intrinsic value, interconnectedness, and essential nature of desert landscapes through a particularly female perspective, distinct from the established historical archive of desert understanding.
For the artist, these desert places simultaneously invoke a sense of the vastness of space and a personal intimacy while retaining a fierce, unexpected wildness. These seemingly harsh and inhospitable environments inspire Bertini.
“Artworks become a type of elegy, a memorial, extending the traditions of landscape painting and oral storytelling. Trees can talk - mountains can move - rivers bury secrets - grains of sand weave myth, knowledge and culture from past to present.”
Jo Bertini