Unlocking Margaret's House Still Life Challenges with Margaret Olley No 8: White Still Life

Margaret Olley painted ‘White still life’ 1977 in David Strachan’s kitchen in his Paddington Street home in Sydney. Strachan was a long-time friend of Olley’s and fellow artist. Tragically, in 1970 he died in a car accident. For much of the 70s Olley used his home as a place to paint as she found inspiration in the objects in his home and an affinity with the light that moved through the house from morning to night.²

It was here that she really started to explore the light, incorporating the time of day into her compositions. In ‘White still life’ the objects are arranged in front of a window. Instead of revealing light, the window instead frames only the darkness of night time, intriguing and poised with possibility.²

For this special still life challenge we invited local artist René Bolten to create a composition inspired by Olley’s ‘White still life’ 1977 using objects from Margaret Olley’s home studio.²

For this challenge artist René Bolten chose to work with two key pieces from ‘White still life’ 1977 - a teapot with its stand and a terrine dish filled with the original egg shells from Margaret Olley’s house. In this arrangement René has created ‘two islands of curves’ with a strong light coming from the side that emphasises the way surfaces might be painted in different ways - using either soft, gentle strokes or strong, gestural marks. For René, respecting each object and its material qualities - its delicacy, robustness, smoothness, or coolness even - helps to broaden the painterly language. ²

Enjoy the video and perhaps pick up a pencil, crayon, chalk, paint brush and start sketching. The first stroke on the paper is always the hardest.

If you would like to read the Activity Sheet and maybe engage in creating a still life picture please click here.

<sup>Credit
1. ehive.com
2. gallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au</sup>

^{Image Credit: Margaret Olley (1923–2011), ‘White still life’ 1977, oil on hardboard, 66.3 x 89.2 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Wayne Kratzmann, 2012. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. © Margaret Olley Art Trust}