"Reflections" Acrylic & Oil on Canvas 50 cm x 70 cm
Artist’s Statement – Aida Pottinger
My mother was a Latvian refugee who fled the Russian invasion of Latvia into Germany and from there; she went as a refugee to England where she met my father. I was conceived in Lancashire and was born in Yorkshire where I was neither English nor Latvian. This exhibition tracks the landscapes linking mother and daughter. A powerful and emotional journey through war and migration, connecting Europe, England and Australia together. Land has a powerful hold over one’s identity. It is part memory, part anchor, part mystery. Peter Haynes, Director of ACT Museums and Galleries describes my work as “highly atmospheric, dream-like presentation with an air of mystery and nostalgia which captures the veils of memory”
I work in a variety of mediums including oils acrylics and ink and while working with a particular location in mind I am not bound by an exact recreation – I prefer to let intuition and the medium dictate what happens on the surface, exploring images which arrest the eye and are arrived at spontaneously. Working from life and landscape as a jumping off point. I like to push the source material to capture an atmosphere or mood visually echoing memories and emotions. My work emerges out of a landscape I may be working on and is a subconscious recognition of how the earth gives birth, nurtures, sustains and eventually reclaims the life on it.
My interests in composition, atmosphere and light reflect several of my artistic influences. First is the tradition of romantic landscape and the obvious influences of JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. A second direct influence on my work are the works of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, who explored spatial structure and resonant colours in their abstract works. My work continues in these traditions by constructing landscapes that directly and meaningfully resonate to the viewers’ presence and engagement.
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