PAUL HAGGITH

Three-time Wynne Prize finalist Paul Haggith’s latest exhibition, 'Studio vs Plein Air', tackles the differences in approach in the development of an artwork. Known for his oil paintings of quintessential beachscapes and coastal fibro summer cottages, for this exhibition Paul has also chosen to pick up the tubes of acrylic paint and head outdoors to capture plein air scenes.

Paul’s studio practice is about entering his own world, researching ideas, developing techniques and manifesting them into an artwork. Associated with this are all of the challenges, accomplishments, moments of spontaneity and occasional failures.

When painting plein air, the artist’s added dynamic embraces all that goes with capturing a moment in a short space of time: a subject is searched out or happened upon; time is of the essence as the elements have become master; and spontaneity dominates but is tempered by technique. All of the studio’s little luxuries are forfeited in an attempt to capture a scene before any elemental changes.

To the artist, if his studio can be a factory of creative construction, then plein air could be his caravan of perception and inventiveness.