Ballarat artist Lily Mae Martin is proficient with both pen and paint. She’s been a finalist for the Manning Art Prize, the Rick Amor Drawing Prize and the Benalla Nude Prize, among others.
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She went to the Art Gallery of Ballarat to talk about a work that has a special meaning to her, a painting by the leading female member of the Heidelberg School.
“The work I’m inspired by is “The Obstruction” by Jane Sutherland. I was really drawn to it by the treatment of the trees and the light.
“Impressionism is my favourite style of painting. It just grabs me. There’s something quite magical about it I feel.”
Lily Mae encountered the work first as a student in Melbourne, but it’s remained a constant in her mind.
“Many years later, when I became a mother and moved out to the country, I started to document my daughter – we lived on the Waterloo state forest and it was just this overwhelming landscape; watching this little being trying to take this all in was quite magical.
“I came in here and I saw The Obstruction, and I saw that there were so many similarities between the two pieces, and I realised that I had stored it in the back of my mind.
"I was really drawn to it by the treatment of the trees and the light."
- Lily Mae Martin
“From what I’ve read, Jane Sutherland did a lot of works with children in the landscape. I haven't been able to find her reasons for doing this. I would love to, to see if it’s about this tiny being in this huge wide world.
“The light in the painting is what really grabs me.The trees seem so detailed and the grass and the sky is sort of fuzzy. You’re drawn in and out through the light and the treatment of the paint. The way it’s composed: this little figure and these big dark trees. It’s just beautiful.”
Lily Mae Martin’s latest exhibition ‘New Drawings’ opens Thursday the 11th of February, 6 to 8PM at Scott Livesey Galleries, 909a High Street, Armadale. For more go to http://lilymaemartin.com/
