ARTISTS STATEMENT

For me, Drawing is the basis of all creative art , regardless of the medium, i.e. charcoal, paint, pencil, ink, crayon, abstract or figurative, or sculpture or collage. It is the creative process of drawing and painting and the aim to achieve a balance of design, colour, mark and especially mood in the final rendition of that process, which gives me great joy and personal satisfaction. The concentration needed to render a drawing or painting provokes, in me, an inner contentment.

My drawings are often portrayed in an imaginary place with suggestion of a surreal mood. I am motivated by the buildings and deserted mining machinery and equipment especially in the Broken Hill area, which I have visited on several occasions. The rooflines and shadows in the late afternoon have special appeal. Charcoal is my favoured medium which helps create this mood.

"Redundant"

Finalist in the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, 2007

“There is an amazing sense of space and quiet atmosphere in the Australian outback low hills and flat plains, interrupted by man’s interference by building mines and houses, which create a bleakness and make a strong physical statement in the land. The bleakness is created by the ugliness of the Industrial paraphernalia required, which in turn is stark and quite surreal, and being surreal, it becomes unreal in its position in such situations. This is especially so when the machinery is abandoned. There are peculiar twists and turns in the pipes and wires and steel and tin and wood and rock.

But it is the stillness and mood in those places that fascinates me most of all.”

Val Landa