In the Media
Newspaper article by Sally Browne published in Sunday Mail - July 15, 2012.
Joyful seasons
The ever changing sights and colours of the Granite Belt have inspired this Brisbane artist.
By SALLY BROWNE
Every year, Beverley Tainton visits the granite belt region of southern Queensland. It's something about the colours and the changing seasons that draws her.
"I seem to find each year I come back with new inspiration," the Brisbane-based artist says.
"I love going in the winter and the spring, and I love to experience that cold climate after going through my summers in Brisbane."
"It's so atmospheric. The experience of the mists and the fog and bare trees - I love the structure of bare trees. It's refreshing and reviving."
"Spring is also a beautiful time. There's all this peach blossom in bloom and the wattle is in abundance in September."
"I love the different colours in the layers of the rock formations in the fields and the wild flowers."
"I love the different colours in the layers of the rock formations in the fields and the wild flowers. You get all the salvation jane, the purple covering the fields."
"You get all the salvation jane, the purple covering the fields."
But what often surprises people is that Tainton doesn't bring a sketch pad with her. Instead she takes a notepad and pen and writes down cues to work from later.
These little notes are abstract poems of sights and colours, such as "dark chocolate ploughed field"; "soft green blues"; "remember peach blossom"; or "use abundance of yellow, wattle everywhere".
"I do find it is a different way to work. I really am aware that I don't have sketchbooks. I don't understand why I don't," she laughs.
Some of her paintings have a personal metaphor too, such as Recovery, which was a response to the devastating Victorian bush fires in 2009.
"I knew someone who was killed in those fires and it had a huge impact on me," she says. "The recovery was important because I had just lost my mother and I had broken my left arm so I couldn't paint."
"I had to go through a recovery myself and that painting is the first that I did coming back out of that period."
Tainton, a retired nurse, said her colour palette was inspired by "beauty and joy".
"I'm trying to constantly produce things that give you a sense of beauty and happiness," the mother of three says.
"We get bombarded so much by negative ideas and thoughts. I want people to see something beautiful and joyful when they look at my work."
September on Bolivia Hill
River's Evening Shades
Essence of Winter
Recovery