Mahala Magins is an Australian painter and one of the four other artists here at the Baer Art Center on a one month residency.

As a point of reference this is the first time I've profiled an artist that is not a photographer. About time.

Mahala is a warm, funny and hard-working young artist whose wonderful paintings align well with where we are at present in Iceland. When I met her on the bus trip up to Baer from Reykavik, we discussed Mark Rothko as being an influence to both of us. That began an ongoing discussion about our art, its origins and where it is headed.

On her website she gives a good sense of what her practice entails, how she works and what her emphasis is:

Both landscapes and portraits are equally at home in my art practice. Often they are entwined, with the former occasionally breaking free to offer unrefined views of slightly surreal urban and natural settings, while the latter being rarely allowed to forget their surroundings.
I like to use raw, emotive and loose brushstrokes teamed with bold colours to help create the abstract nature of my landscapes and spontaneity for the creation of my portraits.
Viewers often express that my portraits are both raw and whimsical at the same time, and the emotion that I try to convey through my figurative works, whether it is happiness, sadness or vulnerability, is harnessed through my everyday inspiration.
The abstract nature of my landscapes are created with an emotive and unregulated brushstroke that was encouraged by growing up in the bush lands of Northern New South Wales. The Gibraltar Range is such a place where there can be structured trees in perfectly straight rows or an open canvas of land that can become immersed in both emotion and uncertainty. It is this juxtaposition that has helped to create the bold and abstract but coordinated form of my works.

Here is her CV: Mahala Magins

I interviewed her one afternoon sitting in my studio at Baer in July, about a week after we arrived, on a cold and windy Saturday afternoon:

Neal:

So tell me how and when did you know you wanted to be an artist?

Mahala: Very early. I feel like I always knew. We had long rolls of old wallpaper and I would draw on them as a kid. In high school we had to do something called two unit or three unit and I had a big argument with the principal because I wanted to do both of them which meant I could do art too. I won that battle. I was brought up in a very supportive community of friends and family that acknowledged my desire to be an artist. After high school I took a year off to do TAFE (Technical and Further Education), which allowed me to work with a mentor (Rene Bolton who is from Holland) on a weekly basis with about 15 others and also be in my studio about three days a week. I am still very close to him and he was a real mentor to me.

NR: You went to university and majored in painting, working quite independently the last few years. Were you influenced by that and other artists at that time?

MM: Very early the work of Henri Matisse was important to me. But I did go through a period of time where I didn't want to be concerned with too many outside influences. In my second year at university I wanted to work from inside and to be very minimal. I've always been pretty self sufficient, being able to work on my own, and feel as though I don't need people around me to work or so much for inspiration. 

However,  later I was definitely very influenced by the work of Antoni Tàpies, as he worked in a very limited color palette. I found that very interesting. For much of this time I was both a figurative painter and a landscape painter and I am still both, although at Baer in Iceland I find myself working in landscape more.  Univeristy was definitely one of the best times in my life. 

NR: What's it like for you being a painter now? In Australia?

MM: Initially, right after obtaining my degree at university I felt very unsupported and alone in the community. I remember feeling like, what am I going to do now? It felt like an empty space and anonymous. It took about two years for me to realize what was there, how there was a broad network of artists, galleries, organizations and networks that were supportive. There's a lot for us: there are grants, and residencies, art prizes, group shows and community groups. But I am also comfortable being independent. I grew up with a single parent and that helped make me self sufficient. 

NR: The other thing is that, in some ways, you're a veteran artist (MM: laughter). It's true because, although you're young, you've been making art a long time.

MM: Yes, it's true. It's not like I entered university not knowing that I wanted to be an artist. I always knew I'd be an artist of some kind.

NR: Do you have any shows planned or up now?

MM: Yes, I have my first solo show now, while I am here in Iceland, back at home.

NR: Congratulations!

MM: Thank you. But back to influences. Lately I've been very interested in the work of designers, such as Charles and Ray Eames, furniture design and architecture.  

NR: Tell me a little about what you're working on now.

MM: I feel like I've been doing a 180 (degrees)! The work of Mark Rothko has been important and recently Sean Scully has been huge. What was amazing was that I had actually produced all these works and then not realized who he was. Here in Iceland I can work with that, these big color fields. 

NR: When we were talking earlier didn't you say that you apply to something like 20 residencies a year?

MM: Yes, well that includes art prizes too. I basically made the decision, I want to be a full time artist at the end of the day, I want to have it as my first income. So now, I have a day job, but it is something I can check into and check out of with no other requirements as my first priority is to work and to get my art out. If I'm going to get there, I am going to have to work really hard to get it. Right now, I go to my job and I leave my job. I would love to be  in this gallery, Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney. It is one of the most sought after galleries in Australia. 

NR: Mahala, I want to thank you for a wonderful interview. Thank you vey much for your time. And I wish you the very best in achieving your goals.

MM: Thank you. I enjoyed it.

Mahala Magins, Hofsos, Iceland 2013                          photograph by Neal Rantoul

Dear Readers:

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this special announcement:

As if you haven't had enough of Neal Rantoul there's more. Elin Spring is a portrait photographer in New England and she writes a blog. The most recent one profiles, you guessed it, my work. Take a look at:

Elin Spring Photography

Along about the end of the second day at NEPR (New England Portfolio Reviews) last weekend, my brain is fried from looking at portfolio after portfolio and I'm all talked out. I want a beer and some serenity. Second to last of the day I find Jim Nickelson sitting across from me, telling me he's from Camden, Maine and prints professionally. With what little brain I have left I am thinking this is good as looking at some well printed pictures would be really nice. Jim is pleasant, seems easy going enough and is perhaps something of a pro here in this context. We reminisce about MPW, Maine Photographic Workshops, nearby in Rockport to where Jim lives, where I taught briefly in the late 70's until David Lyman and I clashed and I never went back. I'd never met anyone quite as impossible and transparent as David and didn't want to ever have the experience again.

Jim opens up his case and pulls out two bodies of work. Some "Moonscapes" and some "Prytoechnics" pictures. We look at the fireworks prints first. Black and white, with black skies, or white skies if he's reversed the image, and the fine lines of the light from the shells streaking through the sky are in exquisite detail. The prints, I'm guessing here, are 14 or 15 inches square and are about the most beautiful things I've seen, not only over the past two days but over the past few years. This was exciting and confirming. There is high quality work out there. It is rare but Jim is one of the ones making really superb photographs. Then we look at the moon pictures, these are in color, and I am intrigued with how he's approached the material new, with eyes open, avoiding all the clichéd connotations inherent in romance novel covers and movie posters from the 40's and 50's. I am less moved by these but they are as consummate as the black and white work. I am now fully awake and tuned in:

What a pleasure. There is something truly wonderful about simplicity done at the highest of levels. Were I you I would check his site, which is unspectacular, but how could it live up the guy's prints? It can't nor should it. I will be hoping for a show nearby soon and will help this happen in any way I can.

NEPR is the abbreviation of the New England Portfolio Reviews which are held each spring in Boston. The reviews are a joint effort by the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Photographic Resource Center(PRC). Not only is this a large two day event with, now, a portfolio walk at the end of the second day but they are the only reviews in town. The biggest and the best and the only! I am proud to serve on the NEPR committee and to help work to make the reviews as strong as possible. This year, which just ended this past weekend, was a very good year for there was good work, good reviewers and the event was managed very smoothly.

I saw the works of eighteen photographers and will spend a little time over the next few posts showing you and describing some of what I saw but I wanted to start with one lovely and talented photographer: Nora Vrublevska.

Nora photographs at night with film and has taken several classes with Lance Keimig, who is well known for his night work and she has assisted him as well. They both teach at New England School of Photography and Nora is taking over Lance's class while he is away.

Nora's Cambridge series served as a wake up call for me. She made many of the pictures in the group in or near North Point Park, a place I have photographed many many times over the years. Do you have a place you go to test a lens, to try a technique, to push yourself to see differently or just to get out with a camera in mid March when you can't be inside one more minute and you haven't photographed in far too long? Mine is North Point Park, which is convenient and near where I live. She showed me something very familiar through a different set of eyes, made some truly beautiful photographs and reminded me that photographers photograph, meaning that I should be able to go anywhere to make my pictures and that they need not be from the mountains of Georgia, or the hills of Valdatavo in Italy or some other gorgeous place, that I can make pictures right here. Duh! For someone so smart I can be really really dumb sometimes.

I have just placed the new series North Point Park on the site at the newest slot, which is the upper left. BTW: It has been far too long since I've added new work to the site itself. I will work to remedy this soon.

Here are a few favorites from North Point Park::

You may have noticed they are in black and white. Yes, I am on a black and white kick lately. I just made these in one pass on Sunday, with Nora's images still ringing in my head. Thank you, Nora, for the kick in the ass. And if I have one word of advice that I can share with you based upon a lesson I seem to need to learn over and over again it is that photographers photograph. 

I don't know that I've ever done this before, write a post about someone's book. But Steve Rosenthal's book of pictures of New England rural churches called "White on White" is such a beautiful and rare thing I wanted to draw attention to it. The book sets the bar at the highest of levels for all things photography and for book publishing as well. The process of making a book of photographs is so fraught with pitfalls and possibilities for really major mistakes that it is rare to see one that is very very good. White On White is certainly as good as anything I have ever seen in my career. Steve is to be commended for riding herd on a project long on labor and I am sure short on financial rewards. But this book is one for the records.

Large at 12 x 14 inches and 136 pages, it is not cheap at $85 but a bargain considering how very good it is.

( I apologize for the low quality of these jpegs. Rest assured the images in the book are of very high quality)

Years ago, there was a company called Zone VI, that made high end products for primarily view camera black and white photographers, but also products like print washers, easels and even an enlarger at one point.  Some of their products were good and some weren't. The company was started and headed by Fred Picker. Fred was nothing if not controversial and he infuriated many of us who sought to demythologize things like the Zone System and good printing. For instance, he offered to sell you a "reference print", which was, naturally enough, one of his photographs, by which you could determine if you were getting all the ten zones from black to white you were supposed to get in all your prints. I thought this was junk, of course, but you have to commend the guy for his idea: provide them with a print that is done right by which they can judge if they are really making a good print or not.

My point? You'd have to be crazy, foolish or oblivious to not know of or to have not seen Steve Rosenthal's White on White as it is clearly a book that establishes the benchmark for any books made of black and white photographs in the future.

If you don't know Steve's work you may see it here: Steve Rosenthal Photography. Steve has retired now from client based work but is still actively shooting and teaching occasionally (as in last month at Penland in North Carolina). His has been and continues to be an exemplary career.

I found White on White on Amazon for $69.14. Buy it.