Paul Gundry Painter
Gundry, born 1969, has lived in Tasmania for his whole life and, despite spending time in other places says, “I really just want to work with Tasmanian scenery.” His approach has evolved over time, a slow burn, rather like his development as an artist. “After school I took a year off and once I finished travelling and surfing, I came across the idea that I wanted to be an artist,” he explains. “I didn’t really get into the studio until about 2006, but since then I haven’t really stopped.”. Describing himself as a ‘mid-career artist’, Paul’s work is highly regarded. He has been a Glover Prize finalist on five occasions, and made the final cut in the inaugural Hadley’s Art Prize. Adopting tonalist hallmarks of limited colour palettes and soft edges his landscapes “border between pictorial representation and abstraction.”
The Australian Tonalist Movement is Paul’s guiding star. Rising to prominence in the early 20th century, the Tonalists embrace silence, subtlety and light: “My practice responds to quiet scenery and capturing all the varying moods with simplicity. This means relying on tone to convey the essence of the image in all its mystery and uncertainty,” Paul explains.
Gundry’s well-known landscapes and seascapes are usually painted in one sitting. “I was looking for something transcendent, not in a spectacular way but in a quiet and unassuming, calm, peaceful sort of way,” he says. “I’m looking for a felt presence, in the way that the environment and the elements assemble and present themselves. They might feel a little bit exalted or like a nirvana, slightly elevated, that’s not necessarily site-specific.”
In his practice the paint itself that compels attention. He prefers a slower drying medium, using oils to work “wet in wet, while it’s alive”. He garners light and atmosphere within a single concerted effort. The paintings’ smooth surfaces and vistas speak to European theories of the sublime, the romantic and the gothic, but also to Gundry’s interest in waiting and watching for particular atmospherics to develop, out of the weather, the soundscape, or simply through being alone.