Dianne Gall is the type of sexy painter that thrusts us into a suspension of disbelief while still holding on to the very visceral beauty of paint. Her new show is a moody, broody mix of nostalgia, glamour and love.
She spoke to us about film noir, Mad Med and how to make things sparkle.
Come the Night is a great show title. What's the attraction of night time and it's broader meaning?
As night falls, emotions can run high, thoughts of hope of what the night will bring, the hour of culmination of endeavour in all manner of things. In the broader sense, the night brings cover, when people venture out and go about their business seemingly undetected, they often role play and step out of themselves and become a whole other entity. Also, the dark side of humanity lurks here, the shadowy thoughts, the background noise of something not quite right. The world sounds different; the hum of overhead power lines, the train rocking along the tracks in the distance, the small things become magnified as the droning sound of daily existence fades and the sounds of the night take over.
For me, the night is a whole other world, another existence, and moonlight in particular, I find just electric, it is like igniting a fire within me, a shot of adrenalin through my body. Here, I find myself looking at the issues of my own personal existence and of being a time of self-questioning and examination.
There are lots of hidden and shaded faces in these works. Not to mention at least one decapitation! What's the significance?
I guess this is a continuation of earlier themes in my work where the objects or dresses people wore were the focus of my paintings. Here, I was talking about the history and significance of the inanimate object. When I look at compositions now, I don’t always want to focus on the people, sometimes it’s the shadows of the plants on the wall that make the painting more mysterious, so it is not always the people telling the story but what their hands are doing or what the objects in the room say about them.
Where does this imagery come from? Are they straight from film stills, or just painted to look like that?
I want to describe certain scenarios, the pain of just being alive sometimes, so Film Noir is the vehicle I’ve chosen to best portray this side of humanity. I take images from movies, I alter them to fit the scenario I’ve pictured in my mind. Sometimes, the film has a direct image that fits in with what I’m trying to say, so I will take out or add elements as artistic license.
I worked in television for 16 years, caretaking 16mm film and later videotape, I used to watch my father lace up 35mm films at the drive-in theaters as a child. So the moving screen image has played a thread in my life for many years and was an obvious vehicle to portray what I’m trying to say. I have snippets of memory from my childhood years of some of these films and I think they also weave their way into parts of the paintings sometimes.
What are some of your all time favourite film noir classics?
Double Indemnity, 1944
Touch of Evil, 1958
Kiss me Deadly, 1955
Niagara, 1953
Mad Men? Love it or hate it?
I love Mad Men, I think the way it changes its mood as it covers different time periods and attitudes as the series progresses is impressive. The filming and costuming is brilliant. It portrays women and men as fatally flawed and is often quite raw.
What do you love about painting?
It gives me something that is only mine, it allows me something to achieve, to be hopefully better at each time I touch the surface of the canvas. I can lock the world outside, I don’t care what others are doing, thinking about, I can just absorb myself into the world of paint. I constantly discover new things about painting, I hope that this will continue to the day I either die or am physically to old to paint. I can say so much with paint that I cannot say in other ways, I could write but I would just be picturing paintings in my head to go with the words, so paint I must. I feel lost if I cannot paint, I am driven by it, it is a need I’ve always had. There is Super8 footage of me as a six year old standing at the easel on my parents back verandah... I’ve always been addicted!
How do you make something sparkle like that?!
Sparkle, its all about contrast and subtle variances in reflected colour. I think there is emotion there too, its like playing the piano, yes you can learn to play the notes well, but if there is no emotion there, well, tin my opinion, here is no sparkle. I am passionate about what I paint, I am emotional and empathetic to others, so the sparkle is a little bit of me coming out of the canvas.
What's been the soundtrack to your preparation for this show?
Several things depending on my mood:
Brian Eno ‘The Pearl’
Miles Davis ‘Kind of Blue’
Keith Jarrett ‘The Melody at Night, With You’
Tom Waits ‘Glitter and Doom Live’
Neil Young ‘Greatest Hits’
U2 ‘Joshua Tree’
“Come the night” by Dianne Gall
Emerge Art Space
676A Beaufort St
Mt Lawley
WA 6050
Until 15 April 2011