Exhibitions
John Olsen
Tim Olsen Gallery
13 November - 8 December 2007
John Olsen
A Salute to Sydney 2007
Tim Olsen Gallery
13 November - 8 December 2007
Please note: Works may no longer be available as shown and prices may be subject to change to reflect current market value. Please contact the gallery for assistance. Thank you
Last year I left the biscuit dry interior of Australia to the arms of that blue bitch goddess named Sydney where I spent my childhood.
Fascinating it is when you visit the caves of memory what comes up. For instance in January when the south-east winds blow millions of blue bottles towards the beach and are left on the beach by the receding tide, the children’s game was ‘popping blue-bottles’. What a game that was! ... Revealing the vitality of that blue-violet colour against the yellow of the sand.
Throwing caution away with rude cheek and daring we were inevitably stung, our bodies, as an antidote we were painted with gentian-violet.
We radiated barbaric frivolity. Another memory - swimming at Bondi Baths - ‘The Icebergs’ - the sea surge of King Tides spraying over the baths and the swimmers rocking back and forward in the turbulent water.
Above all Sydney sparkles with bouncy light - the hills surrounding the harbour cradle the light to make a radiant bath. The beach a place of primitive sensuality, bold and brassy, promises freedom if only for a hedonistic moment.
Each of us has memories that stick to us like the paste of time, I’m reminded by.
Louis MacNeice makes me think of this when he writes in a poem ‘Snow’.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
John Olsen
October 2007
Fascinating it is when you visit the caves of memory what comes up. For instance in January when the south-east winds blow millions of blue bottles towards the beach and are left on the beach by the receding tide, the children’s game was ‘popping blue-bottles’. What a game that was! ... Revealing the vitality of that blue-violet colour against the yellow of the sand.
Throwing caution away with rude cheek and daring we were inevitably stung, our bodies, as an antidote we were painted with gentian-violet.
We radiated barbaric frivolity. Another memory - swimming at Bondi Baths - ‘The Icebergs’ - the sea surge of King Tides spraying over the baths and the swimmers rocking back and forward in the turbulent water.
Above all Sydney sparkles with bouncy light - the hills surrounding the harbour cradle the light to make a radiant bath. The beach a place of primitive sensuality, bold and brassy, promises freedom if only for a hedonistic moment.
Each of us has memories that stick to us like the paste of time, I’m reminded by.
Louis MacNeice makes me think of this when he writes in a poem ‘Snow’.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
John Olsen
October 2007