Salt Green/Blue Ear th

Salt Green/Blue Ear th refers to copper carbonates also known as Azurite. The name Azurite is derived from the Arabic - al lazuwar related to lapis lazuli - meaning ‘from over the seas’. The pigment is formed by salty minerals weathering copper ores inside the ear th and leaking through the granite slowly turning blue and green, so the colour is formed by the conditions of the landscape. I use this colour because it recalls the histor y of painting, from its use in medieval wall paint-ings to the landscape paintings of the St.Ives School.

The colour comes from a mine near Zennor, three miles outside St.Ives. Relocated in the galler y, it is separated from its original source, but it remains related to it. I am interested in the affinity between video projection and wall painting, in that doubt can exist between stability and change. The wall surface gives way to an immersive fluid space in the film ‘Salt Green/Blue Earth’ and an ‘horizon line’ slowly emerges.

The paintings explore relationships between compo-nents par ts in singular works. Each is par tly painted directly onto the galler y wall, dividing the work, so that it exists in two sites – between fixed and unfixed states, emphasising tension between surface presence and the illusion of space. Visual over laps between the 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional fur ther undermine a single stable point of reference.

To make each of these works I have taken pieces from landscapes and turned them into pigment, star ting with a journey to the site I am interested in, then dig or climb underground. Manual processes of washing and grinding change the material into paint. It is this physical transition and transformation that interests me as much as the act of painting itself.

Onya McCausland, 2011

She creates squares, circles – although her circles are not quite circles, nor yet quite ovals – you hardly notice that, but it teases you. And precisely next to the rock/pigment shape she has constructed, on the wall she paints the thinnest, most translucent wash of that same pigment, which then appears as its shadow. But not just shadow: it becomes both shadow and par t of the whole. Shadow and substance as one. Another kind of teasing. As though some minute microscopic force, like a seed, for example, is somehow animated by an internal force, until it expands, gently, using only its own material, until it achieves its ultimate shape and form: its destiny. No different, in many ways, from the growth of an apple, or thistle, or many things natural and organic, which when fully formed achieve a surprising perfection.

What we see at the end of this process is a unified image that is both simple and complex. A shape. You couldn’t really call it ‘reduced’ – because reduced from what? – but never theless a shape, or form, that does many things, in spite of all appearance to the contrar y.

There is something deeply serious about these works, but simultaneously such lightness that you feel you are waiting for them to escape.

In Red Ear th, she cast a truncated triangle from red Iron Oxide, hung it horizontally on the wall, and painted beneath it the palest shadow of itself, as though reflected. Nothing to it, you would think. But it seems to tip over to you, about to fall, and only keeps its place on the wall by some invisible sleight of hand. You are disconcer ted and comfor ted at the same time. As with the deep Black with Shadow. Its two sides - cut off where they meet – are reflected, echoed, or completed, by the other. There seems to be no clue as to how to read it, par tly because you have to make an act of will to see it as being actually on the wall. The illusion of the wings of the object detaching themselves from thewall remains even when you have understood the reality. And in White Ear th the line that appears at its is centre – made from nothing, it seems, except catching the light, the work takes on an almost sacred dimension.

ONYA McCAUSLAND : Paintings from beneath the ear th

Onya McCausland’s work comes from beneath the ear th. It is also of it.

She travels down mines, used or disused, and collects rocks. Iron oxide, manganese, black ear th, chalk, which she then brings to the surface, to begin her process of transformation. Handfuls of the sludge are put into water and stirred. All the gravel and detritus quickly sink to the bottom and the colour is suspended in the water which she pours off into a clean container, and leaves to settle for a day. Then the clear water is poured off, leaving the pigment in the bottom. This must now be dried out, either in a low oven at 80 degrees, or left in the sun, then ground with a mor tar and pestle. Finally it’s put through a fine sieve to remove any remaining debris. The result is pure ear th pigment.

But this is not the alchemy, though it is the star t. The alchemy is what happens later, when the pigment in its turn is transformed.

When you look at these works, you are not remotely aware of these processes. There is such a remarkable lightness of touch that it seems as though the works have simply been breathed on to the wall, you don’t think of them as having been ‘constructed’, or laboured over ; rather, they seem to belong to the wall as though by their ver y nature.

But constructed they are, made out of those same rocks brought up into the air, from those same mines. No sign here of the precarious climbing through the tunnels, or the persuading of the authorities for permission to open up the disused places which have been left dark and untouched for decades, sometimes longer.

What we then see shown on these walls are the simplest of all possible geometric shapes. Though in Onya’s case it is not just geometr y – the shapes she uses are so simple as to hardly warrant the name. It is cer tainly not about geometr y as such, and hardly, even,, about ‘relationships’, which is what defines almost all ar t, if not indeed all that exists in the world.

.These works absorb light, sometimes as though into the deepest void. And they also emit light, par tly from the object itself, as a result of its atomic density, with some sense there of its histor y, its residue as ‘stuff ’, as material found and collected from deep underground. Mined material. It is not then neatly cut and remade and replaced, or replicated. It has gone through processes that are almost alchemical: from lumps of rock, to distilled shard, from shard to sludge, then to be ground, finely, by hand or machine, into pigment. And always with the intention of being put to use, to eventually become something. Something else. Onya herself speaks of ‘an integral order’ that is par t of this process. It is almost impossible now to buy true ‘ear th’ colours. Onya’s pigments have nothing of the industrial processes that go towards the fabrication of paint bought in tubes.

These works are somehow complete in themselves. There is no external reference, or even really metaphor. The simplicity of the language, the familiarity of the geometr y, roots them strongly enough in our vision and experience not to require anything more. Although more there is: if not metaphor, then layered histor y, even adventure; they extend and expand the way pigment has been used since it was first discovered.

For some ar tists the reason for their work lies in their need to tell the world something of what they feel, see, experience. We sometimes call this ‘expressing ourselves’. Onya does not do this. We don’t think of her when we look at her works. On the contrar y, she points to something in the world, and of the world, that affects us without our being aware of being so affected. A series of transformations: from the world – or the ear th – into the world. And these substances that have, in themselves, no meaning apar t from being of the ear th beneath our feet, are taken and shaped by theby the human hand. They are transformed again, and acquire meaning.

These contradictions, of weight and lightness, substance and shadow, stability and instability, are par t of what

keep you looking. You look also, at these substantial works that seem to be also floating, that through the illusion of shape and material, seem to be separating themselves from the wall, and cannot quite grasp how they do this.

They are par t, a continuing par t, of a long tradition. Whether you think of the thir ty-odd thousand year old cave paintings, made with such limited means; of the discoveries and uses of perspective in the Italian renaissance, of ‘Land Ar t’, or the attempt by recent Minimalists to reduce and distil ar t to almost nothing, this is a continuation of that thread. But Onya has moved that thread forward again, because her new paintings – paintings? – are not the same as the Minimalists. She hasn’t let go of the Ariadne’s thread of searching for that par ticular depth of expression – better not use the word ‘purity’ here – but she has moved it on. Because we haven’t seen work quite like this before. She has achieved that most difficult of tasks, to make work that is truly and completely simple, and at the same time so rich, so evocative, that the degree of its complexity exactly matches that simplicity. They are at one and the same time object and illusion.

Tess Jaray, London, 2011

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Sited: Salt Green / Blue Ear th (Morvah)

copper carbonate pigment (azurite) on CNC cut panel

12.5 x 12 cm, 21.5 x 9 cm, 12.5 x 4.5 cm

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Mirror Chalk (Oxstead Quarr y)

chalk on panel and steel panel

42 x 42 cm

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White Ear th (Double) (Oxstead / Nor th Downs)

cast chalk on aluminium suppor t

10 x 15 cm each

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White Ear th (Steeple Mor ton)

cast chalk on aluminium suppor t

14.5 x 20.5 cm

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Red Ear th (South Crofty) / Black Ear th (Bideford Black)

cast iron oxide pigment on aluminium suppor t / cast black oxide pigment on aluminium suppor t

19 x 19 cm, 18 x 18 cm

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Red Ear th with Shadow / Heap (South Crofty)

iron oxide pigment on ply panel and steel panel

41 x 41 cm

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Copper Ochre (Levant)

red iron oxide on ply panel and copper on steel panel

41 x 41 cm

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White Ear th with Shadow (Oxstead / Nor th Downs)

chalk on panel and wall (or steel)

150 x 150 cm

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Black Ear th with Shadow (Up)

black ear th pigment (Bideford Black) on ply panel and wall (or steel)

88 x 168 cm

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Black Ear th with Shadow (Down)

black ear th pigment (Bideford Black) on ply panel and wall (or steel)

88 x 168 cm

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Red Ear th with Shadow (In)

red ear th pigment (Levant) on ply panel and wall (or steel)

166 x 162 cm

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Red Ear th with Shadow (Out)

red ear th pigment (Levant) on ply panel and wall (or steel)

166 x 162 cm

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ONYA McCAUSLAND

Born in Cornwall 1971, Living in London

CURRENT

2011 Honorary Research Assistant, Slade School of Fine Art

EDUCATION

1997-1999 MFA (Distinction), Slade School of Fine Art,1991-1994 BA (hons) Fine Art, 1st Class, Falmouth School of Art1989-1990 Foundation Diploma, Hastings College of Arts

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2012 Sited : (Salt Green / Blue Earth), Millennium2011 Mixed Winter, Millennium Red Earth, Slade School of Fine Art - Research Residency Summer Exhibition RA, Shortlisted for the Wollaston Award 2010 White Earth, St.Peter’s Church, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge Mark Out (Part Two) - Meantime Project Space, Cheltenham Dust - Gloucester Cathedral, Millennium2009 Relocated Landscape III, Pittville Gallery, University of Gloucestershire Transition, Mid Pennines Gallery, Burnley, Lancashire West Hill, A Space Gallery, Hastings Alentejo Red Earth, Drawing Spaces, Fabrica Braco de Prata, Lisbon2008 Contact, 79a Brick Lane, London, curated by Tess Jaray, with Martin Creed & Rana Begum Salt Green –Displacement, Newlyn Gallery, Cornwall English Red Earth, Gloucester Cathedral Residency Mark Out, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton Delineate, East Street Arts, Patrick Studios, Leeds2007 Watermark, Gloucester Cathedral Residency Multiple Occupancy, Meantime, Cheltenham2001 New Paintings, GF2, Golden Square, London1999 Three Times Two, Waterman’s Arts Centre, London

TEACHING

2010 -2012 Honorary Research Assistant, Slade School of Fine Art2003 - present Lecturer, Hastings College of Art2007-2008 Lecturer, University Of Gloucestershire 2002 Visiting Lecturer, Chelsea School of Art2001 Visiting Lecturer, Falmouth School of Art1999 Visiting Lecturer, Leeds Metropolitan University1999 Visiting Lecturer, Slade School of Fine Art

RESIDENCIES

2007-2008 Artist In Residence, Gloucester Cathedral2005-2006 Consultant to Bexley Council Public Art2002 Roundhouse, Camden 2000 Asia House, SOAS 1999 Waterman’s Art Centre

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS

2011 Shortlisted for the Wollaston Award, RA Summer Exhibition2009 Travel Award, Lisbon, British Council, for Drawing Spaces.1999 Duveen Scholarship, Slade School of Art 1995-1996 One year Boise Travel Scholarship, Slade School of Art 1999 Audrey Wykeham, Slade School of Art

PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS

2011 Surface Tension, Pen Dalton2010 Painting Mysteries and Confessions, Tess Jaray2008 Contact, Tess Jaray The World in a Speck of Red Dust, Tess Jaray English Red Earth, Charles Darwent2002 Recent Paintings, Sue Hubbard2002 DLA - Art Collection, ‘A Case for Art’, Sue Hubbard2001 ‘Galleries’ for Recent Paintings, Pryle Behrman

All works 2011 - 2012

Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Sited : (Salt Green / Blue Earth)’ by Onya McCausland

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