Night Wind (on Waning Moon) 2010

TIM STORRIER born 1949

Night Wind (on Waning Moon) 2010

synthetic polymer paint on canvas
152.0 x 305.0 cm; 164.5 x 317.0 cm (framed)
signed lower right: Storrier
signed and inscribed on stretcher verso: Night Wind (on waning moon)/ Storrier

Provenance:
Private collection, Sydney, 2011
Acquired from the above, company collection, Sydney, 2016
Private collection, New South Wales

Estimate: $150000 - 180000

Result Hammer: $177500

My affinity for the Australian landscape has to do with a sense of place, which is both physical and emotional, and the fact that l always know where I am …(1)

This sentiment underscores Storrier's enduring relationship with the Australian landscape, a connection that has only deepened over the past three and a half decades. Storrier has always been immersed in the Australian landscape.  As a young child he left the comforts of Sydney and moved to ‘Umagarlee’, his family’s property near Wellington in the Central Western Slopes of New South Wales. Here, Storrier led a free, if somewhat isolated, existence with his experiences on the property providing a foundation for his art:

I’ve got a theory that nearly all of what I do relates to those years. It falls into a dream really – long languid afternoons, dry, brittle air, heat hazes, long shadows, and snake tracks winding along the dirt road leading up to the house.(2)

At ten years of age, Storrier left the family property to attend school in Sydney. This meant that long journeys through the landscape were a necessary practice, during which Storrier observed and internalised the vistas. After leaving school, Storrier committed to exploring his artistic talents by enrolling in the National Art School, yet always made time to return to the country. It was while visiting his family’s property at Coolah that he heard over the homestead radio that he had been awarded the prestigious Sir John Sulman Prize, the youngest artist to do so. Storrier was propelled into the spotlight and in 1971 held his first solo exhibition at Holdsworth Galleries in Sydney. More than 50 years later Storrier is still producing solo exhibitions with resounding success yet has not lost touch with his driving force. One can only assume that Storrier’s lifelong affinity with the land drives his practice. in 1995 he moved to ‘Blacktown’, a property neat Bathurst and currently, Storrier resides at ‘Hopewood’ in Bowral, an oasis he has called home since 2013. He returns, both personally and artistically, to the Australian landscape. Not the abundant, fertile hills or Australia’s coastline, but the immense, featureless expanses of Australia’s parched interior which he has integrated into his identity making it inherently his own.(3)

While continuing to work in grand romantic tradition, Storrier returns to four key elements: land, stars, fire and air, their relationship to each other being infinite. The limitless combinations of these elements are what encompasses his practice; a slight tweak to the formula delivers a vastly different experience. Storrier’s interest in these four elements and the power of life which they express are imbued deeply within Night Wind (on Waning Moon) 2010, yet the present work exposes a significant shift in the artist’s vision during the opening decade of the new millennium. Where previously his renditions had been direct and literal, his treatment had become more muted, profound and abstract, with fire occupying an almost secondary role to the dazzling celestial sky and cirrocumulus clouds that glide above the cracked earth. Elegant and restrained, the nocturnal scene offers an arguably more complex exploration of the stillness and melancholic mood that have always prevailed within Storrier’s oeuvre. The juxtaposition of fire against the great vastness of the parched plains and celestial skies is an allusion to the passing of time, cast in the same vein as the traditional vanitas still life. Storrier notes, 'there is a relationship between fecundity and mortality, between something that is wet and something that is burning. These are primal poetic qualities that do not change in terms of the human spirit’.(4)

The attraction of Storrier’s work lies in the tension he creates between his enigmatic, almost surreal scenery and the painstakingly smooth surfaces through which they are conveyed. Storrier positions himself a surveyor and a custodian of the great Australian landscape, focusing on the ‘mood, memory and the distillation of time rather than realism.’(5) Night Wind (on Waning Moon) 2010 is a singular example of Storrier’s work and further solidifies his position within modern Australian art.

Footenotes:

1.Tim Storrier, quoted in Van Nunen, L., Point to Point: The Art of Tim Storrier, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1987, n.p.

2. Van Nunen, L., Point to Point: The Art of Tim Storrier, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1987, p.4

3. Ibid., p.27

4. Tim Storrier, quoted in Tim Storrier: The Burning Gifts, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1989, p.11

5. Tim Storrier, quoted in Klepac, L., Tim Storrier, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2018, p.39

Clementine Retallack

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