Liminal Space is a culmination of Georgina Hooper’s visual arts practice-led research with the University of Canberra in which she explores the sublime. The resulting body of paintings are creative artefacts reflective of her search for an experience of the sublime, her findings and evidence of the new knowledge that has emerged from her research.
The exhibition of her delicate rice paper paintings and large-scale oil paintings on linen is characterised by her expressive and calligraphic brush lines, indelible mark making, palpable spaces and atmospheric stillness. The works oscillate between abstraction and figuration, drawing from an observation of nature to make visible the invisible. Through cross-cultural fertilization with the East the artist has sought, formed and felt an enriched understanding of the sublime experience. Her process of creating this work has brought Hooper to a threshold of contemporary language which contemplates a primal and vital relationship with nature as a source.
The artist’s methods of making have served to deepen her understanding of the creative process and its potential for transformation. Using a meditative artistic practice, directed and defined by the principles of traditional Chinese landscape painting and its focus on the metaphysical, Hooper has been moved to connect with something higher. The resulting body of work is a collection of vast and ethereal spaces which entice audiences into an immersive encounter echoing the artist’s creative process, experiences and findings.