Pamella Timmers
"La Musique d'Art" in March 2012 will be Pamella's first Australian exhibition since returning from living in France for the past 14 years.
Official Opening - Saturday 10th March 6pm
Exhibition dates - 7th -31st March 2012
Her paintings exhibit a true joie de vivre and are painted in a colourful modernist style reminiscent of the Post-Impressionists.
See below for transcript of opening speech by Robyn Bauer.
Gallery with "Japanese Music Triptych" in situ
Japanese Music Triptych, 190x100cm, $1,350
Pamella Timmers on Opening Night for La Musique d'Art
Mandolin on Sunroom Table, 51x61cm, $590
Still Life with Chinese Vase and Pomegranates, 61x51cm, $590
Still Life with Kuanyin, 61x51cm, $590
Still life with Piano, 51x61cm, SOLD
Still life with Elephant, 51x61cm, $590
Circus clowns play "La Musique de Nuit", 92x92cm, $750
Circus in Venice, 92x92cm, SOLD
Still life with Pot Plant and Butterfly, 51x41cm, $490
Still Life with Magnolias, 61x46, $550
These new works are based on music, still life and the circus.
I’d like to talk about Still Life as a genre first.
A “Still Life” is defined as a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects that the artist has around them. These can be natural (food, flowers, plants, or shells) and also man-made objects, such as vases, books, musical instruments. Still life has its true origins in the Middle Ages and also Ancient Greek and Roman art.
In the Dutch Golden Age of painting, dark backgrounds were used and I believe this is how Pamella starts her works. Objects from the artist’s own home give an added dimension when the articles are cherished ones. In this way the individual pieces can appear in a new guise. Religious or allegorical symbolism can be read into the things depicted.
Also the artist has more latitude in the arrangement of design elements within a composition, than he or she would in paintings of other genres such as landscape or portraiture.
With the Impressionists’ still life paintings, allegorical and mythological content is completely absent, as is meticulously detailed brush work. The Impressionists instead focused on experimentation with broad, dabbing brush strokes, tonal values, and colour placement.
Moving on to the time of the Post-Impressionists such as Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse, when technique and colour harmony triumphed over subject matter, still life was once again avidly practiced by artists. In my opinion Pamella’s work has a modernist Post-Impressionist feel about it.
The Post-Impressionists reinterpreted nature with their own colour harmonies. As Gauguin stated, "Colours have their own meanings.”
For all these reasons and for its historical pedigree, Still Life is one of the most collected genres. Just look at Margaret Olley.
Pamella’s interpretation of the genre reveals her involvement with music (she plays the mandolin). There are various musical instruments featured in most of the works, from the Japanese Music Triptych to the smaller works, the mandolin, guitar, bamboo flute, and piano all make an appearance. In the circus paintings, the figures are all making music, - playing drums, violin, flute, oboe and balalaika, or else, they are juggling or dancing. Pamella has based some of these figures on actual musicians she knows.
Pamella’s CV reads like a “Who’s who” of art in Queensland. She studied painting with William Bustard during the 50’s. She was recommended as an artist to be watched by Gertrude Langer. She studied with Mervyn Moriarty and Roy Churcher, John Olsen and William Rose.
In China in 1983-85 Pamella studied Chinese art and calligraphy, and also Chinese medicine and acupuncture. For 15 years after this Pamella successfully ran clinics in Cairns, and, after buying a church building, she started to paint again at night.
Pamella then went to India where she ran two hospitals for the poor. She also had a stint teaching in Sweden and Norway where she lived down the road from Munch’s gallery (Munch of The Scream). She has also spent time in America, particularly New York.
These works here reflect Pamella’s extensive travels and her knowledge of the different cultures in the midst of which she has lived for long periods, not just as a tourist but as a resident.
Pamella has exhibited her work widely, - In India, in London and of course for the past 14 years in France and also Switzerland.
I hope you will all enjoy these works and I have great pleasure in declaring the exhibition “La Musique d’Art officially open.