Crash Course at Noosa Regional Gallery
Michael Brennan discovers a new word and explores two different – yet aligned – artists that perfectly capture and present its meaning through art.
I learned a new word. I think it’s kind of amazing that you can be nearly fifty and still be adding to your vocabulary. I thought I was more likely to be losing words by now as opposed to gaining them. Anyway, the new word is: Allision (uh-lizh-uhn).
Perhaps you already knew this one? In which case, maybe I shouldn’t be so excited? It’s kind of like a collision, only a collision occurs when two moving things smack into one another. An allision, instead, happens when a moving object impacts a stationary one. It’s a nautical term. Think, boats hitting bridges.
Ben Hedström doesn’t paint boats or bridges though. Instead, he’s taken up the term ‘Allisions’ as the title for his exhibition at Noosa Regional Gallery in more of a poetic and metaphoric way. Hedström is interested in making paintings that approach a moment of connection with an environment. He sets out to capture the experience of his body, a moving object; connecting with the landscape, a stationary one – physically and thoughtfully and deeply.
This is different to a more conventional approach to landscape painting, where a vista is laid out before us – to take in from a distance. Hedström’s paintings, instead, put you right in the thick of it. He dissolves the distinction between person and place, using a visceral and corporeal application of paint that lets you feel his paintings as much as see them.
Colin Pennock does something similar. His Journey to Paradise paintings can be found in the adjacent gallery. I say ‘paintings’, but they are only just plural – the show is comprised of simply two works that seem to allow paint to hover in space, sitting forward of the expressive landscape below. Where Hedström’s landscapes hold together with tightly packed jabs of colour and tone, large areas of Pennock’s works appear to almost disintegrate and hang in the air.
Pennock is no stranger to large paintings, but the focus of this exhibition is ambitious, even by his standards. An epic 3.3m x 8m paint-covered surface fills an entire wall of the exhibition space, creating an experience where you stand in the painted landscape as much as in front of it. It feels like it almost wraps around you, and those floating scrapes of vibrant pigment drift between you and the painting rather than cling to its surface.
Pennock’s landscapes don’t exist – at least not as singular places, or places that he is trying to represent so that you might recognise them as somewhere you’ve been or would like to go. Instead, they co-locate bits of places he knows with memory, movement and imagination. Hedström’s exhibition is laid out like a non-chronological course from Yaroomba to Noosa Heads – rockpools and rocky outcrops punctuating your journey along the way.
Pennock, in contrast, presents a landscape, a life – that seems to be coursing past you. Both projects reward time spent simply looking and thinking and feeling. This requires you to stand still for a few moments. But if you do, it almost feels like the paintings move and impact you. A moving object impacting a stationary one. Which is which?
AT THE GALLERY
Journey to Paradise, Colin Pennock
Allisions, Ben Hedström
8 February to 30 March 2025
Zahalkaworld – an artist’s archive, Anne Zahalka
5 April-1 June Encompassing material from artist Anne Zahalka’s archive, this exhibition invites you to explore her working life and creative process through bodies of work that span her more than 40-year practice.
Noosa Regional Gallery
8 Pelican Street, Tewantin
For the latest exhibitions, artist talks, events and children’s programs, Visit www.noosaregionalgallery.com.au
