Jo Bertini’s recent exhibition at Sydney’s Arthouse Gallery, ‘Songs of Dry Hills’, alluringly portrayed the landscape she is drawn to repeatedly – the desert.
Her love of that landscape and its First Nations People has led her to spend months at a time not only in the deserts of Australia but also those of India and the US. She has built an intimate connection to these lands and their people through thousands of hours of drawing and painting directly from her subjects.
The paintings in her recent show were big and bold, but it wasn’t just the scale that caught your attention. Standing in front of the works the viewer was drawn into an other-worldly landscape where earth colours are replaced with a kaleidoscope of hues including accents of shining iridescent paint.
Jo has been exhibiting for over 30 years, in hundreds of solo and group shows, and her work is held in private and public collections across the world.
She is also an acclaimed portraitist with work in the National Portrait gallery, as well as an art educator, lecturer and writer.
Jo comes from a family of well known painters and photographers including the modernist photographer Olive Cotton and her mother, the sculptor Anne Ferguson, has been her greatest mentor.
To hear the conversation press ‘play’ beneath the above photo.
I also filmed Jo in her studio in Sydney – her larger studios are in country NSW and in New Mexico, USA, where she has lived for the past 5 years. See below for videos from the Talking with Painters YouTube channel .
Upcoming show
Solo exhibition at GOCA, University of Colorado, April to August 2022
Links to things we talked about in the show
- Website of Jo Bertini
- Jo Bertini at Arthouse Gallery
- Australian Desert Expeditions
- ‘Fieldwork’, book of Bertini’s drawings and gouache paintings
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Australia
Wonderful inspiring work!
Thanks Maria and Jo,
This episode was especially inspiring.
Like many, I had an early romantic view of intrepid women travellers, especially to deserts, thanks to stories of Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark and to those that artists that chose to live there; Georgia O’Keeffe and Agnes Martin. Finding out more about our deserts through Australian and Aboriginal artists starting with Emily Kame Kngwarrye has been a wonderful journey through art I’m keen to continue.
However, seeing the landscape for myself, brought so many of my favourite works to life! I can appreciate that existing in that space, living and breathing it for an extended time…letting it get under your skin is essential to understanding the space, the colour and the sheer life presence there.
We took a family trip to central Australia a few years ago…it was one of those mad school holiday dashes… I rarely felt there was the time to make anything of creative significance and struggled with the enormity of it all. There was so much beauty (expected) and rain (unexpected), that sitting in a gully of transient waterholes for nigh on two hours and only coming away with a pencil drawing and a scrappy watercolour sketch felt disappointing. But opening my sketchbook takes me right back there, and to pathways to kata juta streaming with rivers of water, and the straggly line of a sand goanna along a mud wall, something photos cannot do.
Hi Vicki
What a beautiful image of that sketch and it taking you back to that place. I agree it’s something a photo can’t quite do. Thanks for listening! Maria
Oops meant to add ‘fabulous life story and love the colour and vivacity of Jo’ paintings. I’ve revisited this episode three times already!
Thanks Vicki!