Peter Godwin: Notes to Oneself

Notes to Oneself presents a new series of interiors by Peter Godwin that are awash with the shifting, ephemerality of light. As the title suggests, the artist returns to thoughts from the studio - contemplating the potential of light to build form and infuse the compositions with its transient presence.

Light is a constant element in Godwin’s practice, whether the absence of it in his nocturne works or in this latest series bringing it to the fore. In his sunlit studio on the central coast of NSW, the shifting light is ever present. Large canvas sheets are hung across the windows to filter the intensity of the natural sunlight, and in doing so imbue the room with a golden hue. Godwin’s study and control of light is instrumental to how the artist works, understanding its potential to imbue his paintings with a sense of the passing of time.

Working with a tempera emulsion Godwin applies fine layers that are almost translucent, mirroring the ephemeral qualities of light. Adding and removing paint, the gradual layers build forms of silhouetted furniture and objects, filtered by the changing light. In the washes of tempera Godwin plays with the abstract intensity of light and its innate quality to soften forms, or in some compositions dissolve all detail as the interiors are enveloped in its luminosity.

The soft, sunlit interiors are a distinct departure from Godwin’s earlier interiors and nocturne paintings. Dense blocks of colour are replaced by pale greys and umbers applied in thin washes. Colour and detail are used sparingly, and the absence of these elements allows light to come to the fore. Graphite is used alongside the tempera emulsion to create a sense of spatial depth and loosely mark out forms of furniture and objects - whether a ghost-like silhouette of a mask or figures on a table. Rather than paint over the graphite, Godwin leaves it in its raw state. The combination of graphite, the muted colour palette, and flowing painted forms lend an atmospheric quality to these lightly finished interiors. Light is the dominant presence as it waxes and wanes, marking the passing of time across the room.

Framed by vertical and horizontal borders, energy is held in the peripheral edges of the compositions, which dissolves as the eye moves into the centre of the distilled interiors. Recurring motifs in Godwin’s interiors - the blue pattern of a curtain, black and white tiles, the white void of a window or a canvas on an easel not yet begun - are paired back in sparing detail and used as structures and voids to guide the eye through the work. Solid forms are scratched back into with various implements, breaking up flat areas and removing paint in gestural lines. In these subtle traces of form and space, we find ourselves floating through the abstracted interiors.

Lucy Stranger
Writer and Curator