Brigid Noone’s paintings have continually reflected an intrigue with people as subject matter and, in many ways, her paintings could be considered a modern-day version of traditional portraiture. Unlike portraits from a pre-photography era, her human subjects have neither commissioned nor sat for their portraits, but have arisen from personal photographs or from the mass of reproductions that contemporary media consists. Noone draws out particular men, women and children for her painted community that, with a little help from her brush and palette, share a quality; Grace.
Like all good and sought after qualities, grace is elusive and impossible to pinpoint. In art history, Romantic artists have perhaps most aptly expressed grace, and Noone, as self-confessed Post-romanticist, continues to recognise the relevance of the non-rational as well as the strength and composure of the individual. Without a hint of moral righteousness nor denial of the trials of everyday life, Noone’s paintings offer emotional-driven expressions of conviction, positiveness and a sense of making the best of things
The emotional key to Noone’s portraits lies within her colour choice. Two colours, a lovely dusty pink and a 50s green, radiate from her canvases of varying sizes. These two colours, and their derivatives, seem to have arrived from memories of local bathrooms that haven’t been renovated since mid last century, or of childhood lollies before they became garishly intense. Noone’s subjects are not placed completely in front of these colours, but instead their outlines seem to emerge from within. Usually her individual’s faces tend to have more definition, opacity and depth and thus suggest this is where their individuality, strength and grace manifest themselves.
Many streams of thought flow between the paintings of this exhibition, but perhaps the most fascinating is the reappearance of sailing ships and tattoos in the absence of sailors. A ship sets sail from a woman’s head, one sails over the crook of a man’s bare back, tattoos dedicated to various lovers or loved ones are inscribed upon women and children’s arms. This imagery metaphorically refers to concurrent ideas of the ephemeral against permanence or sailing away (into the sunset) juxtaposed with anchorage. References to sailing soon also lead to ideas of adventure and discovery, and in particular, to Australia’s colonial past which is ridden with dark ambiguousness and nostalgia simultaneously. Amongst the canvases, some portraits are contained by painterly renditions of ornate frames, others with meaning-laden iconography that could lead us in every direction possible, but they don’t. Noone, while encompassing so many references to life past and present, brings her subjects together into her painting world.
While the paintings of this exhibition are somewhat alternative versions of the ‘portrait’, in Grace Noone follows some critical portraiture conventions that are still understood to this day. The contemporary viewing audience is savvy when it comes to interpreting portraiture and Noone uses this understanding to her advantage. For example, we have come to know that a portrait of any individual is simultaneously a self-portrait of the artist and it is a reflection of the time and culture in which it is made. So though Noone’s subjects appear as a variety of individuals, as a collective they become a self-portrait of Noone, of our current Australian/global culture and, most importantly, of Grace.
Sera Waters
