This is a talk that was given to Key Stage 3 Students at Arthur Terry School, in Birmingham, about the work of the Australian artist Shannon Smiley. February, 2014

1. Helen Nodding, Artist Talk: Key Stage 3 students at Arthur Terry School, Birmingham

2. Topics that this presentation will cover
• Background history
• Definitions
• What art historical terms can we use to describe the
work?
• Subject matter
• Influences
• Research methods and source material
• Technique
• Colour and tone
• What does the artwork make us think and feel?

3. Background History
• Shannon Smiley was born in Melbourne,
Australia, 1977
• Artist Statement The Australian suburban
environment is for me a place where an
enchanted subject can be found. In the
overlooked and undefined spaces without
purpose or function, a wilderness grows with
an urgent will to live

4. Definitions
• Urban
Referring to a city or town
• Suburban
The district or area just outside of a city or
town
• Wilderness
A wild, uncultivated region or area of
wasteland

5. Whilst this images may look very much like photographs to you, they are in fact all oil paintings.
From what the artist has told us in his statement we know that his paintings show areas of
wilderness around the city in which he lives.

6. The artist wants to draw our attention to the overgrown weeds and nature in his everyday
environment and he spends an enormous amount of time painting this subject in great detail.

7. The artist gives us hints
that we are in the
urban/suburban
environment by including
evidence of human life,
such as man-made
structures or graffiti.
We are reminded that we
are not out in the
Australian bush here, but
still very close to the city.

8. What art historical words can we use
to describe the work?
• Landscape painting
• Oil paint on canvas
• Representational art
The word "representational," when used to
describe a work of art, means that the work
depicts something easily recognized by most
people

9. Subject matter
• The Australian urban/suburban landscape
• Nature in the city
• The beauty that lies within overlooked areas of
our everyday environment
• Draws focus upon and celebrates aspects of the
city that usually go ignored, for example weeds
The artists shows us the ways in which nature can
inspire us or make us feel

10. Oil painting is traditionally
seen as a medium that
depicts very important
subject matter. Think about
how the artist uses the same
medium to celebrate and
glorify something as humble
and unwelcome as a weed.

11. Through the work the artist also suggests that life in the city has distanced us from nature.
Before we had gadgets like clocks and i-phones to tell us the time and date, we once relied
upon nature to give us our life rhythm’s (through the changing seasons).

12. In this painting we see how nature is starting to take
over the buildings of the city. Whilst we may have
distanced ourselves from nature, it is always ready
and waiting to takeover again.!

13. Can you see the subtle outline
of a bridge in the background of
this painting?
It reminds us that we are not
in the wild Australian Bush but
still close to human civilisation,
near to the city.

15. The Romantic Movement
• This was a movement in art and literature of
the late 18th and early-19th centuries that
emphasised personal experience, feeling and
emotion, particularly in response to nature
Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840

16. Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917)
John Constable (1776-1837)
Art Historical Influences
JMW Turner (1775-1851)
Salvator Rosa (1615-1673)

17. Romantic landscape tradition
• Shannon Smiley is inspired by romantic artists
from the past because of the ways in which
they saw beauty in nature and dealt with the
subject of man’s relationship to the natural
landscape.
• These artists were able to show us how the
landscape can stimulate us and effect our
moods and emotions.

18. The landscape in contemporary art
• Like the Romantic painters of the past, many
contemporary artists working in the landscape
tradition emphasise personal experience,
feeling and emotion, particularly in response
to city life and urban nature
Hisaharu Motoda, b.1973

19. Contemporary
Influences
George Shaw

20. George Shaw
• George Shaw is a contemporary painter (from
Coventry, UK). He paints very mundane (or ordinary)
scenes from the suburbs in which he grew up, to create
a mood and interest in the everyday.
• Rather magically, he somehow makes the everyday
seem mysterious. When you look at the works you get
the feeling that something might be about to happen,
or perhaps they are showing a crime scene, or places
that hold a symbolic significance for him.
• By drawing attention to familiar scenes that we often
walk past without thinking about, George Shaw is able
to make us re-examine and think about the significance
of the landscape of our everyday world.

21. Contemporary
Influences
Sam Leach

22. Sam Leach
• The paintings of Sam Leach often refer to historical,
classical landscape painting which he overlays with
futuristic scenes, by adding artificial and constructed
layers on to them.
• Sam Leach links Science with Art to make us think
about environmental issues, and forces us to question
what our future landscapes might look like.
• Leach sees his paintings as being artificial landscapes of
times to come. He projects an optimistic side to the
future, where technology and mankind can work in
harmony with the environment.

24. Research Method
• Walking
The artist takes regular walks around the city and its suburbs,
looking for inspiration in the overgrown nature and areas of
wilderness that he finds

25. Source material
• Photography
The artist takes photos of any scenes that he finds interesting. Taking
hundreds of photographs he goes through a rigorous selection process to
decide which ones will make a compositionally successful painting

27. Technique
• Using a grid is a good way to make a drawing from a photograph
• It means you can accurately copy an image section by section
more simply than sketching it by freehand

28. Technique
Dürer’s Grid
• The grid device was made famous by 16th artist Albrecht Dürer and
versions of it have been used since by many artists including Leonardo
da Vinci, Jan Vermeer and Vincent van Gogh
• In “Dürer’s Grid” the artist looks through the frame and copies the
outlines of what he sees onto a piece of paper with a similar grid
marked on it

29. Technique
• Preparing to paint
Before he starts painting the artist, Shannon Smiley, divides his
chosen photograph into a grid using a pencil and ruler. He then
draws a bigger version of this grid onto his canvas, ensuring that it
has the same number of squares as the grid on the photograph

30. Technique
• Painting
The artist then works square by square to copy and enlarge
the original image. He builds up the paint in layers until he is
happy with the final painting

31. • The artist uses the grid to accurately transfer
visual information from the photograph to the
canvas, square by square.
• He builds up the paint in each square layer by
layer to add depth, contrast and detail.

36. The colour wheel
• On first inspection you may think that the Shannon Smiley’s
palette largely consists of the colour green
• However, when we place one of his paintings next to the
colour wheel, we can see that the artist has used a range of
colours to create the work

37. Tone
• Warm colours and cool colours
cool colours
warm colours
The artist uses lots of
shades of green, but
how does he create a
sense of light and
shadow?
He mixes warm
colours with green
when the leaves are
in the sunlight
He mixes cool colours
with green when the
leaves are in shadow

38. Contrast
• When colours opposite to each other on the colour wheel are used next to
each other they create contrast. Contrast can help to create a mood or
atmosphere within a painting
• Here we can see that the artist has used warmer colours in areas where
the light falls and their opposite cooler colours in areas of shadow
warm colours
for sunlit
areas
Contrast
cool colours
for shaded
areas

39. • Through a subtle use of colour and tone we can create a
mood or atmosphere within our paintings
• By paying attention to the things that we often walk by
and ignore, we can find beauty and inspiration for
artwork almost anywhere!

40. Things to think about
• What do you think that the
artist wants to make us
think and feel about the
overgrown nature in and
around our cities?
• Why does he dedicate so
much time and care to
show us a side of the city
that many people don’t
notice, or even see in a
negative light?

41. Artist Statement
The Australian suburban environment is for me
a place where an enchanted subject can be
found. In the overlooked and undefined spaces
without purpose or function, a wilderness grows
with an urgent will to live.

42. Task
• When you are walking to school, the shops, or are out and about in
the city, keep your eye open for any signs of nature or wilderness in
your everyday environment (perhaps a weed growing through a
crack in the concrete)
• Take a photo (you could even use the camera on your phone if it
has one). Think about the composition of the image and how it
might look as a painting. You might take several photos and choose
the one that you think will work best as a painting; ask your teacher
for some advice
• Print out your image and use the grid technique to enlarge it onto a
piece of cartridge paper (your teacher will show you how)
• Think about the tone and colours that you use to create the
painting. Also consider how contrast can help to develop the
atmosphere or mood of the artwork