Osmosis Artists

Leonie Oakes

tones of silence, leonie Oakes, 2010

Tones of Silence, 2010

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Below are some images from the journey to Queenstown.

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2010 Exhibition

Leonie Oakes

Tasmania has been my home from the age of three when we moved here from Sydney to “get my baby brother”. My first encounter in the Queenstown landscape was as an undergraduate student with Raymond Arnold as the guide, mentor and scout. It was an inspiring journey.

After being awarded an APA scholarship I completed a Masters Research Degree in 2009 at the University of Tasmania. Currently I am the coordinator of printmaking at the Polytechnic Tasmania where I also teach in the photography department.

I enjoy reconstructing narratives both real and imagined. Central themes in my work are the body, the self, memory and containment. I encounter the landscape with an awareness of my body and connect to from my urban experience of home.

Artist Statement

The recent trip to Queenstown was a journey of trepidation and great anticipation. The weather was as forbidding as the forecast. Rain, hail, sleet and heavy snow slowed and tired the drive. On descending the town appeared to have a heightened sense of silence. It was not one of abandonment for me, but of a town of inhabitants pushed into hibernation by the weather.

We arrived in Queenstown at dusk and left just after dawn the following day. Our journey was unnaturally short in timeframe; one night and a two day drive, with only half an hour of daylight in the town.

The series of photographs that I have chosen to exhibit for Osmosis 2010 are entitled Tones of Silence. I am aware of a presence, a human form in the abandoned fragments. The colours of the surrounding landscape echoed in their forms. I am drawn to and haunted by them. I stood in the hail, after the fire in the charcoal remains.

The weather demanded we “Leave before it was too late”. We were warned not to stop, no breaking, and “six cars ahead have already left the road because they didn’t heed the warning”, “if you are going to go, just go”. It felt to me like I was leaving the fire that had engulfed the house that I had photographed. It was a very beautiful and grand adventure.