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'Beyond the Worryline' Oil painting on linen by Grant McSherry. 1500 mm x 780 mm. With
imagery dominated by Aoraki / Mt Cook and the Mt Cook Range, this large
format oil painting on linen describes the Aoraki Mt Cook vista with
the Tasman Glacier, Mt Haidinger, Mt de la Beche / the Minarets (in
the background), the Nun’s Veil, and for those with a very sharp
eye the painting even includes Mt Cook Airport away in the distance. Right: Detail from the painting showing The Minarets & Mt de la beche, The Tasman Glacier and Mt Cook Airport. The idea to revisit my original Highway 80 subject ten years after having initially painted it had been percolating in my mind for a while. This would be a quest to paint new light through old windows and a self-challenge to measure my progress as an artist a decade on… My thought was originally to paint exactly the same image as ‘Highway 80’ toward the end of my painting career, and I still may do that. As it happened I had to deliver some paintings to a Queenstown art gallery in October 2010 and this gave me the opportunity to find new Aoraki / Mt Cook imagery on my way home. The weather and light were great and there had been a significant snowfall late in the year on the Alps, making conditions in the Mackenzie Country perfect. I found and captured imagery that I was pretty excited about, including a pair of photos of the Bridge over Birch Hill Stream. While firmly anchored on the subject matter of the original Highway 80 oil painting, ‘Beyond the Worryline’ is based on a dynamic image that I believe truly opens out in terms of perspective and detail.
Having decided to paint this image complete with the signage, I became
curious about what a worryline might be. In a whimsical sense I thought
a worryline could be a great place to park your baggage before moving
on to somewhere amazing. While this explains the theory of my painting
title I was reasonably sure that the road sign had little to do with
parking baggage. Left: Detail from the painting showing the 'Worryline sign' Having been unable to discover anything about worrylines that aren’t wrinkles on Google, I contacted the NZTA, who gave some insight as to what the sign means… The word “Worryline” is on the sign because the current bridge replaced two bailey bridges (Worryline 1 and Worryline 2) that were there up until about 30 years ago (around 1980). We can only presume perhaps that the stream was called Worryline up until then. I guess the next question is around the artist’s opinion having compared the two paintings created a decade apart…
The differences are significant enough for me to be happy. There is commonality in regard to the amount of time and effort that I have always put into brush paintings and ‘Beyond the Worryline’ was no exception, having taken over a month to complete. Although I think there is a relationship between the paintings, use of colour, tone, brushwork and perspective is quite different as it should be. While I hope the less worked style of the 2001 Highway 80 painting gives warmth, the 2011 painting creates a heightened sense of depth and is in line with my overall objective, which has not changed in ten years…to create an accurate sense of place. Original painting
'Beyond the Worryline':
Oil on linen The original oil painting is available for sale NZD $15,500 + packaging & freight. |