Lise Temple
South Australia’s rich, rural landscape comes to life in artist Lise Temple’s oil paintings. Her abstract, unconventional, albeit graceful style has won her numerous art awards, and in our latest spotlight, she tells us about her move from the city to the country, and her hopes of developing her abstract forms.
Q: Hello Lise! Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
A: I am a painter of abstract landscapes and interiors. My work is driven by the technical considerations of design, colour mixing and impasto paint application. In 2003, I left the distractions of city living in the East to settle into dedicated art-making in rural South Australia.
Golden Vineyards Study 50cm x 60cm
Q: Who inspires you? What inspires your art?
A: My practice has been highly influenced by the physical environment of the South Australian mid-north. Initially, I was moved by the vivid colours and atmospheric light. The broad views of its wide valleys lead me to develop a collage approach to representing landscape.
Q: Do you have a preferred medium?
A: Most definitely oil on canvas.
Looking Out With Time IV, oil on canvas, 112cm x 122cm
Q: How would you describe your style?
A: My collage based approach to landscape has become a method of working that addresses time and movement in relation to place. I have also used a similar methodology to examine built environments and interior spaces.
I also enjoy working en plein air to make studies from life. The studies represent my intention to constantly experiment with and broaden my technique. Painting from nature provides a different set of challenges which positively influences my studio work.
Q: Can you please describe your artistic and creative process i.e.: from lingering idea to putting it into practice?
A: I generally begin by shooting hundreds of photos from the car whenever I’m a passenger. These photos become the source for collage making, which is how I compose my designs. Once I have a composition I like, I use it as a maquette for a painting. The painting process is quite loose with further developments to the design always occurring. I also like to allow for accidents to play a part and will sometimes make several different paintings from the same collage.
Canola Study
Q: Where do you see your art practice taking you in the next five years?
A: I am always trying to push my work into more purely abstract form, without completely abandoning representation. I am sometimes shocked by how slowly changes take place. I hope that in five years time, my work will show some development or refinements in this direction.
Q: If you could recommend one artist, who would it be?
A: Richard Diebenkorn has been highly influential for his straddling of realism and abstraction in his practice. It often seems that artists are expected to conform to the labels of “representational” or “non-representational” but the movement between both is what fascinates me.
A Road from Light II
Q: What is your favourite gallery?
A: Saatchi Art, as it is huge and online, so I don’t have to leave my rural idyll to view it!
Q: Where can we find more of your work?
A: My website and Instagram.
Mt Sonder, West Macdonell Ranges, oil on board, 49cm x 75cm
Q: If you could choose anyone to paint your portrait, who would it be?
A: Vincent van Gogh, as I adore his work! His portraits are quirky and full of character, and I would be hoping for a decorative background too.
– Masya Zabidi
Collage 