Influence of nature

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 6

Influence of nature

“Microcosms of the universe,” is how Mrs Jeannette Bisley would describe the paintings and drawings in her exhibition entitled “A song in the tree and a sound in the bush.” It will open at the Canterbury Society of Arts gallery this evening. “I am influenced by nature itself. I see my paintings as being like one cell of life. “These cells repeated become like the whole universe.” When she goes into country areas she gathers pebbles and soil samples because to her they represent a miniature of the pat-

tern of life in the whole universe. All her work portrays birds in varying numbers, colours, and designs, inextricably bound up with nature. Birds tied “People tend to think of birds as very free things but like us, they too are bound by nature. “For instance they have to migrate. We are bound up with nature, although this mechanical age and advertising tries to tell us to forget It. “I don’t think we can escape nature.” Her birds are interwoven with the foliage in her canvases. “Birds hide themselves in hedges, you can hear them but you can only see them if you really Jpok hard,” she said. When she came to New Zealand from England three years ago Mrs Bisley became very conscious of the beautiful colours of native birds. “Birds are just like people, some are pretty, others are ugly, and you even find ones with double chins,” she said. For this exhibition, Mrs Bisley said, she relied mainly on gulls and other seabirds because they were bolder than the little robins and sparrows. Bolder “These bolder birds and those with exotic colouring create the sensations of light and colour,” she said. She wandered about 50 miles up and down the coast from Christchurch, and scounted the city dumps to observe the bird life, she said. Although she paints mainly outside Mrs Bisley does work at home, but only in the daylight hours, leaving her housework for the evening. “I could never have a studio that was isolated from everyone. I like the family round while I work,” she said.

She has a small son, who presents no problems because he too likes to paint. Mrs Bisley is married to an

artist, Anthony Bisley, who is a graphic designer at the Ham School of Fine Arts. When asked if she thought her work was developing in any particular direction Mrs Bisley said: “I am not conscious of a direction, I just have this overwhelming thing about the life and universe cycles. Not named She has not named the individual paintings in the exhibition because “they are all part of the one thing.” “I forget the individual paintings. In fact when I went to the framers to collect them I discovered 1 had five more than I expected,” she said. Mrs Bisley’s style is rather abstracted (a term she dislikes). She prefers to Say that she subtracts certain parts to emphasise others. Her previous exhibition, last March, was in a similar style but the subject matter was entirely of landscapes. Mrs Bisley had three years basic training at a London art school but had to leave to look after her invalid sister. “I was only able to carry on my work through friends and old painters. They supplied me with virtually all my materials and some valuable old books that were really collectors items,” she said. Many of her supporters were well recognised artists, not least of whom was Montague Smythe.