" . . . As asked by the artists, it is the open question of how, wherever I happen to chance, I am dappled by my elsewheres as I go, and how I might dapple them back In my passing . . . You just venture out again, and continue on your way. In search of little nothings. That way, you encounter ‘small epiphanies’. That is what the artist calls being taken by surprise by an unsuspected connection. A little joy of happenstance . . . "
Brian Massumi, Making To Place In the Artist’s Words, Refracted*
I came with little knowledge of how my 10 days at Gunyah would proceed. Having spent the last 18 months on a large scale mural project, yet to be installed, I knew I needed to ‘re-frame’ and find a new more experimental way of winding away from that work. I also wanted to let Gunyah inform me, to offer up its small epiphanies.
Gunyah wooed me into a stillness, a gifted patience that disarmed pretence. Initially, I played with a couple of representational drawings, imagining myself into a daily ritual, but the place required something more connected to the rhythms and patterns, the sounds and life of organic things.
 |
| Wendy Tsai, Gunyah residency photos |
I had brought a range of materials with the hope I might make some large ink brushwork, which by the second day seemed entirely appropriate to a new physical and gestural abstraction. I was finding a kind of new language to respond to North Arm Cove and the surrounding bush, water and seascapes. I was reminded of the work of Australian artist G.W. Bot who intuitively maps the landscape through a personal language of glyphs, and also of Franz Kline, the American abstract expressionist, 1940-60. These research diversions were delightful indulgences. I also read Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (1972), which paralleled my navigation of human habitation and the native beauty of North Arm Cove.
 |
| Wendy Tsai, drawings in the Gunyah studio |
Wanting to work with the blackness of my brushstrokes, I collaged shapes cut from National Geographic magazines, later drawing into the shapes and brushstrokes to mimic some of the patterns which I found in the sand and water. On reflection, these collaged shapes reminded me of the shells and shapes found on the shore.
 |
| Wendy Tsai, Water Collage details, Gunyah residency |
 |
| Wendy Tsai, Glyphs detail, Gunyah residency |
In my proposal, I mentioned wanting to slow down my observation to a frame by frame activity that resembles breathing. I think getting lost in the process of making became the breathing, the inhalation and exhalation of place.
I am very grateful for this wonderful opportunity and many thanks to Kath Fries and the board of Gunyah for making this special place available to artists.
Wendy Tsai
Gunyah residency report
July 2022
 |
| Wendy Tsai, Driftwood, Gunyah residency |
*Simryn Gill, Here art grows on trees, Australian Council for the Arts, for the 55th International Biennale de Venezia 2013
