9 min.
Days of Labour, Days of Rest
There is a numinous glow to the assemblage of landscape paintings in Robert Scott's exhibition Recover the Land at the Forrester Gallery in Ōamaru that brings to mind the salve of the pastoral. In these works, through a combination of glazes and paintwork, the land is positively radiant with sunlight: it might be in a state of benediction. There is an implication that, if traversed, the streamlined clarity of these landscapes could reveal a hidden trail that leads to some valley of recovery and healing, as in a spiritual quest. Certainly, that was my immediate impression upon entering the exhibition, located in the upstairs windowed rooms of the Forrester Gallery, which occupies the former Bank of New South Wales building, designed by the Pugin-influenced architect R.A. Lawson, and is still…
