Jack Oudyn

 
Having lived and worked in the Redlands as an artist and arts educator for most of my adult life, it is inevitable that it influences a large part of my art practice. Most of my artwork is non-figurative and not about the direct representation of particular places or events. Rather, it refers to a more abstract relationship with places and the excitement aroused by the sense of a place visited or in things found close to where I live.

Everyday, ordinary things such as the bush, mangroves, the mud and sand, shells, crabs, fish and the beaches on North Stradbroke Island are internalized and absorbed. I try to pin down some of the wonder, beauty and hidden underlying characteristics of these natural objects by developing a personal syntax of gestural, intuitive marks. I also use codes and conventional systems such as maps, resulting in work that represents a sort of distilled experience. My imagination and inner thoughts also play an important part. Most of my work tries to draw generalized notions or formula from the complexities of real experience and connection.
 
Some of my more personal, narrative, less abstract work, draws on synchronicity and chance and involves what I call, memory mining, by revisiting the work many times. Often, these works act as a bridge or connector forming links with experiences and memories from other parts of my life.
 
They start small in diary format, growing a little bigger as I add tiny collages of things we normally throw away such as tickets, stamps and old paper. These works are often connected with travel, the urban environment, history and my family. Although the Redlands conveys some of this work indirectly, it is mainly the result of overseas travel that has helped me visualise as a visitor seeing things for the first time. Change Over Time, Shoreline Traces and One Trip Leads to Another contain some elements of this type of work.