The swan and the seagull

Rafael Gurvich, November 2018

When I look back over more than 45 years of painting, drawing and printmaking, it’s interesting how early I began to move away from depicting the human form as a dominant subject becoming more interested in organic shapes, animals and birds.

I think a combination of travel overseas and learning to observe behaviour in a much bigger world made me aware just how much the natural world held a wealth of ideas and images which in turn allowed greater freedom for emotional expression inclusive but beyond the human condition.

Since moving from the city to Phillip Island 28 years ago, farm animals and the abundant bird life here have offered a particularly rich vein of exploration. In the past the curiosity of cows and their calves, the perkiness of Fairy penguins and the antics of the pelicans featured prominently, then my interest in other bird species developed and intensified to incorporate Cape Barren geese, swans, galahs, cockatoos and gulls etc.

It’s always interesting to see how so many different species accommodate each other and interact. In fact, it’s hard not to feel a sense of awe and wonder at the resilience of all the Island life as it battles the elements, shrinking habitat with the encroachment of new housing estates and the increasing pressure of relentless tourism. But they definitely do. The Cape Barren Geese strut about on the local golf course and along nature strips. Swans and ibis prance in the flooded low lying paddocks after winter rains and the gulls and pelicans thrive on the fishermen’s discarded by-catch. The penguins who return to shore every night, after a tough day at sea, trudge past the rapt gaze of hundreds of onlookers, intent on their mission to get to their burrows and chicks, dismissive of their adoring public.

This recent collection of work concentrates, for the most part, on the depiction of a single swan or seagull in a squarish format. The swan is a particular favourite, with its sensuous and seductive curves, sweeping wings and elegant shape especially noticeable in the courting ritual or in the act of preening. And then there is the beauty of its flight as it takes off with a long sprint and an upward surge of beating wings gathering speed to glide skywards, or its artful descent throwing its wings into reverse to land in a flurry of feathers and extended feet.

In Flamenco Swan #1, #2 and #3, I wanted to depict the energy and movement of a courting display so similar to the dance itself. The wings thrown out and around the body, at first fanlike, then in full display, then folded and tightly wrapped like a feathered shawl. The swirling wings and twirling feathers are repeated themes allowing for an infinite variety of shapes within the form as a whole.

A colour I particularly love, Ultramarine blue, a semi transparent colour which can be used in a wide variety of shades, predominates, interlaced with warm velvety blacks, rich magentas and yellows then usually a touch of Cadmium red. As a parallel theme I use the phases of the moon as a backdrop to the swan, a single arcing shape, as in Full Moon Viewing, where the Cadmium Yellow moon is a strong contrast to the bird’s body. These Full Moon Swans represent to me the very essence of the extraordinary clear starry nights experienced on the Island where the moon floats like a balloon through the star studded night sky, bathing the landscape in a pale luminous glow.

In contrast to the graceful swirling feathered swans of the night, comes the compact, sleek shape of the seagull. In bright daylight it floats and bobs about like a small boat on a sea of textured and stylised waves, or scavages in flocks along the foreshore, a noisy aggressive opportunist and a perfect foil for the richer paintwork of the swans.

I have found that by restricting the imagery and the palette of my recent paintings, particularly those in this exhibition, that it has helped my understanding of the subtleties and complexities in the use of colour and tone, texture and painterly qualities. This in turn has, I think, given my paintings more depth.

Into the mix I add my strong interest in music which helps me tap into the rhythms and sounds of my surroundings. I love listening to the sounds of J.S.Bach, my “go-to “ composer, when I paint. But recently I have been really enjoying some wonderful classical Indian Ragas, where I’ve been amazed at the similarity with the same musical complexity of composition within the mixture of the Sitar, Sarod and Tabla. This links further into my continuing exploration of a brightly coloured palette as mentioned before, with an emphasis on warm or cold blacks, deep ultramarine blues, bright cadmium lemons and yellows and the warm or metallic magentas which I find create a range of delicate pinks.

In gathering all these elements together in my paintings I try to convey a sense of joy, pleasure, satisfaction or humour and an unselfconscious honesty tinged with pathos, that is so much of the timeless life affirming quality that exists in natural behaviour on the Island.

I find it interesting when I stand back and look at how much my work has hybridised from earlier ideas and images, informed by an upbringing within a tight knit secular Jewish migrant community into a seamless melding of a very Australian viewpoint gathered from all the influences and friendships I have encountered as I have grown up.

My first trip to Europe in 1975-1976 was an interesting awakening. Having assumed I would feel a sense of the familiar, I instead felt quite alien, disorientated and homesick – which surprised me and was a shock. I missed the Australian landscape enormously – the trees and plants, the skies, the landscape. What this experience did though was make me see with a fresh eye and in a rather surreal way. Landscapes, people, animals and objects took on odd relationships in quite unexpected ways particularly obvious in a multi- panelled painting from 1977, Blue heads in conversation, where I dispensed with the bodies and placed the heads in a park- like landscape.

In 1981 when I spent three months travelling in Asia, I felt much more comfortable – particularly Java and Bali where there was a living cultural mystic combined with a general sense of vitality where animals, people, music, history and religion created a rich tapestry to the ebb and flow of everyday life.

A way of life that harked back to the richness of life in a pre-war Eastern Europe that was more my parents experience. The combination of my interpretation of their experiences and mine in Australia and through travel continue to inform my paintings in a never ending cycle, where observation, imagination and just the everyday, keep suggesting new combinations of images to explore.