KYLIE BANYARD FINALIST IN 2022 LEN FOX PAINTING PRIZE AT CASTLEMAINE ART MUSEUM

“A grainy black and white archival photograph depicts a group of young women working in a cornfield (Cira. 1940). Found amongst the Black Mountain College archives, the photograph tells a story of three women clustered together working in a relaxed synchronous flow, framed by the grand Appalachian Mountains blanketed by a soft misty light; the dynamic between them appears as harmonious as the triangular shape their collective bodies form across the centre of the picture plane. Discovered while travelling on a research trip in Ashville, North Carolina, the 80-year-old photograph served as source material for my painting ‘Holding Ground 2’. The painting forms part of a larger series of works responding to the legacy of Black Mountain College, which foreground friendship, celebrate female artists and students engaged in intimate exchanges and moments of co-creation, responsive to the wild mountainous land surrounding them. Seeking to pay homage to their labour, the women in the painting are rendered solid with pale bluish almost marble like flesh; the heightened swirling colours and lush foliage that surrounds them bathes them in a soft cool moonlit glow – suspended in a daydream.” Kylie Banyard 2022