ANDREW SUTHERLAND
Up a Hill, 2020 | Below Mount Burgess, 2020 | Lazy Drift, 2021
Oil on paper
500 x 380 mm Framed
In this body of work, Andrew Sutherland imagines possible answers to the question posed by the Kinks in their song This Time Tomorrow, expressed through oil and mixed media on paper and canvas. The artist imagines fantastical landscapes that transport the viewer into an escape that occupies both the past and future; these landscapes feel both unknown and familiar, as though we are discovering their wonders for the very first time and yet revisiting them with a firm knowledge of their paths, fishing spots, and hiking trails. These utopian scenes, often inspired by vintage books and magazines, capture the sense of an exploration that treasures unfathomable natural beauty, the joy of unknown territories, and respect for the pristine and untouched.
An old guidebook from the artist’s studio.
“I would say my approach to conceptualising my artworks is a combination of spontaneity and meticulous planning. I spend a lot of time photographing and cataloguing images from my collection of old magazines and books – this preparation stage is more meticulous than the actual painting itself, which is generally created quite quickly from a very rough thumbnail drawing.”
- Andrew Sutherland
“The figures in my paintings represent me and you – They are there to give the landscapes some kind of scale and to create a narrative in which the viewer can participate.”
- Andrew Sutherland
The nostalgia of Sutherland’s work is delicately counterbalanced by the almost futuristic quality of the subject matter; giant cacti dwarf explorers who move through the landscape, soaring mountains which give a sense of being somewhere in Asia without the viewer being able to pinpoint the exact place, and caves on a magnificent scale which seem to have been carved by waves larger than any that could be found on earth. Indeed, it is in this careful blurring between past and future, that the artist cleverly suggests that this time tomorrow, we may find a way to recover earthly landscapes that have been lost, or that our extra-terrestrial exploration will finally lead us to new worlds yet to be discovered.
