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GUY WARREN
"Escarpment
Illawarra,1986"

Acrylic on Linen
180x229 cm

Reproduction courtesy of the artist.

"Escarpment Illawarra" is a continuation of Warren's obssesion with the rainforest and escarpment in the Jamberoo valley. Again it shows the atmospheric and dramatic aspects of the the escarpment cut hard against the sky, and the mists covering the mountains.

This painting is a good reference to many images of Jamberoo Mountain used by Guy in his work, in particular the mountain seen behind Bert Flugelman in "Flugelman with Wingman" . The difference being here that the mountain takes on a central monumental place in the viewer's vision.

Again there are elements of this work that are part of the continous symbolism of Warren's work. In particular the ovoid leaf shapes that occur in the lower left corner. These also appear in "Rainforest Blues" and "Flugelman with Wingman" and may be read as a visual shorthand for leaf forms in the rainforest.

An interesting analogy would be to compare these works with the late works of the American artist Phillip Guston. Warren, like Guston, is working in a style termed by Kenneth Clark as "old-age style" which involves newly discovered freedom, a sense of isolation and ultimately a zealot like belief in instinct, which leads to a rediscovery of the power and exuberance of painting. Warren, like Guston, returns to symbols that are his own personal language like the leaf form, the wing man , the boat and the tree fern woman. To paraphrase Guston discussing Chinese Sung painting from the 11th century, painting involves " doing something thousands and thousands of times... until someone else does it, not you , and the rhythm moves through you. I have had it happen to me. It is a double activity, when you know and don't know, and it shouldn't really be talked about... You can't judge it because it was felt.", an analogy that one can apply to much of Warren's recent work.