FERN PETRIE
Flights of Fancy
Flights of Fancy, Fern Petrie’s new collection of fantastical paintings and sculpture, goes on display at Linton and Kay Galleries at The Old Perth Technical School this Thursday, March 7. The exhibition runs until March 22. Go to lintonandkay.com.au for more information.
Some people never grow all the way up. That’s no bad thing; keeping the connection to childhood fantasy alive is the key to creativity, not to mention a useful corrective for the woes of the world.
Some people never grow all the way up. That’s no bad thing; keeping the connection to childhood fantasy alive is the key to creativity, not to mention a useful corrective for the woes of the world.
One of those people is New Zealand-born, Perth-based artist Fern Petrie, whose latest collection draws inspiration from 19th century children’s literature and other phantasmagoria to draw the viewer back to a place of wonder and inspiration.
The exhibition is an impressive accomplishment, especially for someone who, by her own admission, only started seriously painting a few years ago. Formerly a printmaker, Petrie had all but given up on art when, while working at Jackson’s Art Supplies, she was inspired to pick up the brush.
“I’ve always wanted to paint,” she explains. “But for some reason it never happened. It always seemed too difficult. Then, when I kind of lost sense of myself by coming to another country and leaving everything that was me behind, I kind of felt free to try something new. I wanted to work in colour; I was very monochrome before. I felt that I needed to put more sunshine into my life. One thing led to another.”
In a remarkably short period of time, Petrie has earned a reputation as an insightful and evocative artist, something that this latest exhibition proves beyond any doubt.
“This particular collection is all about childhood fantasy and living in a fantasy world,” Petrie tells us. “That’s why the colours are so bright and there’s so many interesting little things going on in the background. I really love Italian art, especially Renaissance art and surrealist art. In all of those things, like Maori art, everything in the picture has symbolism. I really like that, so I tried to add lots of small symbols that represent feelings and emotions.”
Ultimately, her goal is to help us return to a time in our lives when the walls between fantasy and reality were thin.
“When you’re a child, everything is open to you; anything could happen in the world. You read these books about adventures and stories and feel like you’re actually living them. There’s no separation between real life and that fantasy world. I just wanted to connect with that innocent, imaginative side, because I think that life these days can be pretty banal, and you have to deal with the mundanity of life. We have to remember that there’s so much more to life than that. When you’re young and you read The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings there’s something within them that stays with you, and it can’t be rubbed out by all the days of drudgery and all the awful things that go on in life - you’ve got those seeds of something great inside of you, and I just wanted to express that.”
_TRAVIS JOHNSON
_TRAVIS JOHNSON
