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Lecturer and video maker Dr Geoffrey Sykes in front of a Gleeson pain... |
Media exposure widens for great Australian painter
James Gleeson has been hailed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Australian painters in terms of his vision and craft.
And the Fox-Ovation documentary channel is the latest media outlet to screen a one-hour piece in his honour by Dr Geoffrey Sykes from UOW’s School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications in the Faculty of Arts.
“Meeting James Gleeson” has just had its first screening on the Fox-Ovation documentary channel. Directed and edited by Dr Sykes, the piece was previously screened on ABC Sunday afternoon arts and has had wide educational distribution.
From February this year the work will also be available for public non theatrical DVD distribution by DV1.
The work is based on extended interviews with the eminent Australian surrealist painter. Gleeson died late last year and the screening is a form of retrospective on his lifelong contribution to Australian art and art criticism. The DVD includes 45 minutes of extended interview material that has been recently compiled.
Dr Sykes believes that such audio visual work is an important form of intellectual publication and research, finding significant and different audiences to traditional academic papers.
“The policies and practices for screening of new video works needs continuing reform, and that important independent production remain a significant part of our media culture,” he said.
Dr Sykes said that we live increasingly in a video age and that video is transforming the internet as well as television practice.
“I am interested in forms of interactive and digital video which are fundamental to convergent media,” he said.
Dr Sykes has also developed a performance piece based on the images and poetry of Gleeson, with the co-operation of the painter. This multi- media work combines dance, music and acting with layered digital projections. It was last performed at the National Gallery of Canberra in 2005 and a shorter version was done at the Wollongong Art Gallery in 2008.
Dr Sykes believes there is little doubt that Gleeson was arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Australian painters in terms of his vision and craft.
“He had a distinct sense of the conditions of perception and interpretation in his own experience and art that seem to correspond to the possibility of myth and meaning in societies generally – especially in early societies.
“Gleeson maintained a profound, imaginary and generative engagement with the Australian landscape, especially its coast, that is unparallelled,” Dr Sykes said.