Review, BRISBANE NEWS, ‘Art Beat’ by PHIL BROWN, 1998 ‘Other Realms’, until 13 June, at CINTRA GALLERIES, 40 Park Road, Milton

THE BIG PICTURE
Packed with symbolism and mystery, 
Cynthia Breusch’s paintings confront 
life’s important issues

IT'S refreshing to come across an artist who is not shy of dealing with the big issues time, memory, eternity, meaty stuff like that.

Some creative spirits become so obsessed by the microcosm that they ignore the wider picture altogether. But let's face it, some of the best art - be it literature or painting - has dealt with profound issues that remain relevant throughout the ages.

How else could you explain the contemporary interest in Faust, recently superbly staged by Opera Queensland?

Are modern audiences still interested in ideas of good and evil, heaven and hell, love and hate?

The answer to that must be a resounding "yes", based on the Faust experiment.

Audiences will also respond well, I imagine, to artist Cynthia Breusch's exhibition, Other Realms, at Cintra Galleries.

Over the past few years, Cynthia has developed a following for her poetic and mostly representational paintings, paintings which have always had a strong aesthetic appeal. (You'd think most paintings should have but, of course, they don't).

Her new show will not disappoint her present fans and will probably gain her some new ones. It features 33 paintings on a variety of subjects and themes, mostly those which relate to the eternal qualities and values of life and art.

The microcosm and the macrocosm are represented and poetry pervades the canvases.

This exhibition is the result of 12 months work for Cynthia and follows a European trip with partner and fellow painter, Christopher McVinish.

On their jaunt the couple visited the major art museums of Europe and got up close and personal with some of the greatest works of art ever produced.

"I fell in love with paint all over again," declares Cynthia.

"It really had a profound effect.

”A lot of artists come back from Europe and want to paint picture postcards of their journeys. I haven't done that but these paintings certainly have a European feel about them, while they carry on themes that I've worked on before."

One of the most obvious effects is the feeling of antiquity that can be gleaned from the works through classical shapes and forms to the working of the surface or the sheer scale of some of the scenarios which suggest myth and heroic landscapes.

Endless Day is a good example. In it we see tiny, ethereal figures playing lawn tennis while vast trees, like titanic sentinels, tower behind them and a lake disappears into the distance where the horizon glows a gentle gold.

There is a feeling of other worldly timelessness.

Other works are highly symbolic and would delight any archetype-hungry Jungian dream analyst. Island Self is an obvious example of this. A craggy island in a dark blue sea (the sea of life, the sea of the collective unconscious?) has a mouth-like cave and suggests isolation and solitude while the cave suggests an inner self and interior landscape that can only be guessed at.

There are other more confounding symbols, like the piano perched precariously on the ledge of a waterfall ... the poetic distillation of memory.  A delightful image - shades of Jane Campion!

Other works testify to Cynthia's interest in European landscape painting and portraiture, and while they are all rich with symbol and metaphor, meanings are not always easily apparent, which is as it should be.

"I'm trying to get across a feeling more than anything," Cynthia says. "I want my paintings to affect people the way poetry or music does."

And as with poetry or music, you can spend time dissecting them or just enjoy.  While there is plenty of food for thought with Cynthia's paintings, they

Can simply be appreciated as beautiful pictures.

“People are lacking beauty in their lives,” says Cynthia.’It’s not fashionable, really.”  But the response of audiences is proof that there is always a yearning for beauty and desire for an experience of transcendence and spiritual gratification from art.

If you have such a yearning, the paintings of Cynthia Breusch  will inspire and delight you.