Katherine Boland

Artist Statement

My father was a professional photographer. From a young age I developed a passion for black and white images, as every afternoon after school I watched him magically develop his photographs amidst the overpowering fumes of the darkroom.

Male, female, good, evil, light and dark are all phenomena or concepts represented by black and white since pre-history.

A Buddhist teaching encourages us to:

• Realize that the body and life are like a water bubble,
• To remember how quickly they decay and death comes,
• To gain firm unchangeable understanding that after death we must follow black and white karma as the shadow follows the body.

In this body of work, ‘Shield, Me’, I have used black and white as an emotionally and spiritually charged backdrop on which to superimpose ‘shields’. The shields represent individual entities, each having unique characteristics, but, like the human race itself, share a commonality. Shields have been used throughout history to protect and display affiliation to a group. They are often highly decorative and imbued with the aesthetic value of the owner, so, although they have a common function and form, they are also individual.

On standing back from these paintings the viewer can sometimes perceive negative and positive spaces. Are we seeing an object, a shield, in the space before us, or an opening into another world? In Eastern philosophy these ancient contemplations give insights into the nature of reality.

As in previous bodies of work I have used fire to burn into timber panels. The organic nature of timber and fire imparts a sense of the primitive to the work connecting us to our primeval past. The redemptive power of fire with its associations of regeneration and rebirth again make reference to Buddhist thought.

‘Fire occupies a special place in Buddhism. A fundamental emblematic element, an unavoidable step on the path of knowledge, an integral part of offering because it is both heat and light, fire offers above all purification and the flame of impermanence in development and change’

(‘Symbols of Tibetan Buddhism’ by Claude B Levenson)

Katherine Boland
July 2009

All enquiries welcome: Tel: (03) 9417 2828 Email: enquiries@catherineasquithgallery.com.