Dennis Argall:
an artist's perspective and items for sale

For me, art has no meaning, is not art, without connection and intimacy.

Thus my drawing and painting has drifted comfortably towards human forms. But photos of great spaces acquire meaning through connection. We may connect with an emptiness inside us, we may connect with a wider universe. If there is no connection, send the negatives to National Geographic for reading in dentists' waiting rooms and safe schools. I am not attracted to aggressive nihilistic images, nor am I attracted to symbolic, religious or otherwise, imagery, that says "here is the answer." What seems real to me is that which awakes something positive, curiosity in the watcher, that nudges to self-awareness, sense of life.

I have not trained as an artist. I trained as a writer through years in the foreign service, trying to convey images of places and situations and endeavouring to persuade governments to what I considered constructive approaches to international relations, at the most modest or very occasionally more dramatic moments. As a writer, including of non-fiction, I have never started any text knowing how it would or should end... though pushed by superiors in government often enough to produce such. Reality emerges as you write; the situation is understood best as you describe it, as you touch it.

So it also seems in my writing of my novel, which is on the second monitor, to the left of this text, as I write this. I have a sense of who and where my characters are, not least because they tell me. As to where they will go, who they will be later, what will happen in the interim, how boring it will be if I were to know now. Please let me feel the skin of it and discover its richness, not be limited by a map or an anatomy text.

Line drawings, nude figures: A friend remarked to me,
encouraging me to draw and paint after seeing some of my photography:
"Remember, the hardest thing is to know when to stop."

This is true of writing and also of pictorial art. I do not know what it will be when I begin, it evolves. And when I have been away from painting or drawing, I discover to my surprise, soon enough, that I have abandoned brush or other tools to work with my hands. This no doubt relates to my preoccupation with the female form.

 

 

This work in charcoal on acrylic, on a large table (see it also in the studio, top of this page), exemplifies the way figures emerge and acquire force as you work; it was begun with an approximate idea, it evolved, it came alive as I worked.

This picture seems to arrest attention. I do not think it is in any way pornographic, but it is arrestingly erotic, not because I intended it that way, but because it happened. One friend, brought to a halt, said: "if ever, if ever, you dispose of that work remember me first. She is wonderful."

This figure could not be drawn without use of the hands to provide texture and these are the hands of a 67 year old male, live. It is not a real person, it is a statement of energy and life.

I have not been to, am not keen to go to, a life drawing class, with a nude model. I may be shy, as also I am a shy dancer. I prefer to work from memory of texture and I see people around me in movement or lack of it. I do not 'undress' people I see, I see their strengths and energies.

My vision is also formed by years working with a camera in the digital age. As a somewhat hyperactive person, the swift feedback makes digital photography far more feasible than was film photography, requiring deliberate orderliness.

The camera obliges you to see things in the world as if in a window. Some things you encourage, you seek, but you are very very lucky if they work out as you hope.

They must convey emotion to be worthwhile (worthwhile to me, anyway). And emotions should be honest. The young German travellers at Greenfields Beach in the Jervis Bay National Park said it was the most beautiful place they had ever seen.

But you don't have to be told that to know it, when you look at the picture. Somehow also, their hearts were in rhythm. Yes, I asked them to jump, but they told themselves how high.

It is possible to be blind to surroundings if one just goes out and clicks at sights. Read Ken Rockwell to learn great stuff about structure... but the more you see him writing about structure the more you see it's in his heart and eye.

Even in company the photographer is solitary. You have to be alert to take the picture that passes in front of you in a moment, the smashing shopper, the young man running in the rain, displaying energy and much of Rome.

Even buildings can be passing magic. Light changes, you move, perspectives alter, unless your brain is stuck in mud... I had not gone to the right place at the right time, opportunity was sudden.

 

 

Those photos and more (samples below) for sale, (EXCEPT GENERALLY PORTRAITS, PRIVATE THINGS) printed on A3 210gsm cardstock, framed $85 plus $20 safe pack and postage; unframed $42.50plus $15 for tube pack and post. i.e. postage in Australia. Write for postage costs for international purchase. All international purchases by PayPal. Click here to visit blog See my photobooks for sale at Blurb Visit my work space for coffee +61 4 000 365 92

The thumbnails below include portraits. Inquire for portrait sessions. Portraits must be in your spaces, your comforts, your thrills, lifting and showing your energies. Same though, with landscapes, they convey their energy, inspire warmth or perhaps apprehension at their openness. Again, the landscape can be rendered differently in paint, see the painting of the Gerringong Golf Course, after I attended Joan Miro's painting workshop there.

A portrait may be abstracted to convey spirit, in this case to take the focus off physical nudity and on to power. [NFS]

 

Or a portrait may be literal, surrounding the subjects lovingly with their own art and their own space... the sort of photos that do not get listed here.

 

 

 

 

This portrait below conveys a different energy, a different warmth:
a Greens candidate come to make a speech [NFS]

As also this portrait, catching another smiling moment. It's wonderful to take people by surprise, catch them smiling as so often they do not smile when a camera is pointed at them. Nothing worse than the rigour of discomfort when the focus is unrelievingly on the un-vain. A camera operator may make the subject feel guilt, but it is the fault of the camera operator if people are discomforted. See in each case how showing part of the subject brings focus onto their spirit. In reality we do not look at 100% of a person at a time, and so this kind of 'in their element' shot' may be more real. [NFS]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This lovely landscape on the left, which speaks volumes (about itself and about me, its lover) appeared suddenly when turning a corner in an Italian village. I was so stunned I put my finger in it. Long way back to take the picture again, we learn!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes a photo may reveal an enigma, sometimes we later find in the photo something we did not see on the day (what was that film of the late 60s, early 70s that worked on that?)

In this photo I had sought to reveal geometries between the baptistry and the cathedral in Siena. And then Helen pointed out the couple and I cropped the photo to focus on them.

There is something strange happening. Her hand is on his shoulder, her head to his cheek, but his hand lifeless.

All is not well, there is a story, there are many stories to be told, any one of us can spin a short story or a novel from this image...

Spend a little time examining this photo, try not to be moved. Then, also, tell the story though the eyes of the gentleman cast in stone on the right hand side of the photo, whose mouth is agape, despite the extraordinary history to which he has been witness over centuries.