About Sunyata
Internationally Exhibited Collectable
Australian Fine Art
Internationally Exhibited Collectable
Australian Fine Art
From Childhood Musings to
Australian Fine Art
An Artist in the Making
I never had a problem with wearing the artists hat. In order to find your way, you have to be willing to draw bad first.
– Sunyata
Sunyata, the Eclectic Artist View….
When we think about painters of Contemporary Australian Arts, we see a high standard of painterly skills, yet still, the market sits safely within the decorative Arts.
Generally, the Australian Arts are decorative and conservative!
Rarely do we honestly see work that challenges us to wonder who it is that might create such artworks as Sunyatas. Obviously, that person puts great care into meeting many of the standards and continuity that make an Artwork aesthetic!
Those who dare to move through that realm of experimental Narrative Subject matter and look long enough to see deeper and work out what you are looking at?
It is something about our time before us somehow has us looking at Our-Selves too!
This is obviously, intentional that the Artworks pull us in to have us question our safe boundaries. What stands as acceptable as Art yet still has us asking,
‘l don’t exactly feel comfortable with what l think l am seeing, but l must admit it is well done! Or, perhaps, in some odd way, moved! Or, at least left with questions?’
Sunyata’s Artwork is peopled with a plethora of characters, some serene, some bestial, some made of symbols and signs, others classical, as well as cartoon characters. They are contemporary people like us who can sometimes be beautiful and even iconic!
His small studio unit is a clutter of intense stamina, and this intensity is both familiar but oddly unsettling. There is no Outside world here? This is a very ‘internalised’ Artist!
Sunyata was exposed to the Australian Art environment early, including PNG and European art. With his Protestant parents’ work ethic and exposure to art, music and spirituality, he questioned what to Be. So at age 10, his father asked him what he would be when he grew up. He said, “an Artist or a Minister”. Both choices come from his father and mother, in that order.
When seeing a person so persistently creating Art, we see something that can only be called a primal drive! He is totally Self-contained! From his earliest childhood memories, he was content to work independently with whatever materials he had.
Sunyata attributes this to his mother, who always found a way to answer his questions, direct him to his own activities, and be comfortable with himself. This is why conventional schooling never worked for him. Learning by wrote rather than communicating one-on-one created a deep understanding of things. When adults gave him the time and focus, even for just one hour, the impact was profound and exponential on Sunyata’s learning.
The Mature Artist
The subjects and styles shift; there are no loyalties to merely being happy to become a formula Artist and play it safe just because one way of painting could have him sell out! The restlessness persists! The love of restlessness persists! It’s not money or fame that drives this person, nor a desire for attention!
What looks nonsensical at times, ironic, sardonic, cynical, sarcastic, even comic, there is always this undertow with which we can’t be sure we should feel comfortable! You feel like this contemporary cave painter is leaving messages for us to decipher! He doesn’t need to be here for this work to live on! He wants us to think for ourselves! Who am l that sees this? We are somehow in this, whether we are facing a beautiful woman or some strange cryptic totem!
What’s the end goal? Is it the aesthetics or the message? Many of Sunyata’s paintings are a music style we’ve never heard before. We must listen from beginning to end and listen to it again to get what’s going on! Or, like poetry, that winds down a word path, where for a moment we feel lost, and then one line brings it back for us all together. Then we think we have achieved something for our understanding! We can marvel at our intelligence!
It might appear as a picture, or there may be no space, but they are definitely Modernist, and he holds up to a now long tradition of Australian Expressionism too.
‘Yes, I am that. Like New Modern or Post movement Art, but l am coming from Art first, rather than depicting something! But, what amazes me, is it doesn’t matter how arbitrarily l might approach an Artwork, it will always come down to something about now, and then I’ve got it! I often intuitively think to go a certain way, and with very simple means, as l can easily be seduced by my own drawing too quickly! I like it best when I’m almost lost; I’m struggling with something hidden, like a Magus who needs to find that missing key or maybe a secret alchemist’s substance! So much can be right about the sensory material values, and l know l will eventually find a landmark that makes being lost in wonderment of a completed Artwork!
This is what l love about being an improviser in Music too! As l find the end, it seems so familiar; it seems like it was almost contrived from the beginning, but it wasn’t; l was free-forming, with hours of being irritated by all number of things in the Artwork that has finally come to completion. I love looking at it, but I’m eager to get on with work again! And slowly, the painting disappears under a small mound of new works!
That’s why l like doing 20 paintings at once! I love the state of wonderment! You can’t fake it; if it’s not working, it will irritate me no end! I will sleep on it, and l wake up and go, “Aha! I’ve got it”. I might knock out a whole section l have put hours in to get it to be ‘alive’ again! I can work on paintings for years! Often they get buried, and I’m so happy to see them again when they reemerge!’
In these words, we learn something about this strange practice of making Art and making art of value! This is Contemporary Australian Expressionism!
Why Australian? Because the wit is Australian! Look carefully, just try to say International Art, and you will find artistic and art historical links that reach out to many cultures; this Post Movement Art notion sounds like a reasonable generalisation, but the intellection is Australian!
If you look at his CV as an exhibiting Artist, and any of his formal training, both are broad but strangely despotic!
Born in Adelaide, he left home early and moved through the Underground Arts and Music environment during the late ’70s and ’80s. His Artwork was finally accepted and exhibited consistently in the 90s and the early turn of the millennium under his former name, Geoff Ween-Vermazen.
His Art has found its way into the homes of notables collectors and Arts enthusiasts such as Kym Boynthon, Russell Starke, Paul Greenaway, Garth Pye, Anthony Brown, David Bromley and Lyn Rowland.
His Artwork is collected across Australia, France, Netherlands, the USA, the UK, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, Canada and India.
At 47, his first thought was a three-month reconnaissance trip to India to create a travelling body of Artwork, absorbing something of the more Ancient undertone of Indian Art! This took him from Australia for eight years.
The work that followed was amazing. Soon enough, resources came through to do extensive Artworks in Pune, Maharashtra, and Madhapur, Gudjurat (which became the Sunmadness suite), whilst staying in Brahmvedants Ashram whilst exercising deeper meditation under the followers and tutelage of Ramdulare! Then back to do an extensive drawing suit whilst living in Khajaraho, Madhya Pradesh! ( Khajaraho was where he first worked in his first stay). Then back to Pune, moving between small studio spaces and Ashrams, then finally sidestepping everything to live in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, to practice Jnana between 2012-13. Art and the personal spiritual journey ran hand in hand! In 2013 he lived back and forth between Bali and India.
Sunyata finally returned to Australia in 2014 and was determined to stay, after what turned out to be an incredible adventure. While away, he was constantly working and had built up a reasonably large personal collection again. Sunyata felt satisfied he had culturally imbued himself with so many existential opportunities that only India could give him.
Sunyata is naturally optimistic; he laughs and loves to make inappropriate jokes, but his resilience has him using every moment to make things! He paints consistently and is a highly talented instrumentalist who’s finally committed his music to score, which he has had in his head for decades.
He is devoted to Art with an ongoing belief in the Avantgarde and that the Arts are constantly in flux and renewing themselves as humanity does! Sunyata jokingly says,
‘This no sleep thing is fine, or short bouts. l wake up with a solution to a painting or piece of music, and l can just get up and do it. l am very fortunate because, despite the irregularity of sleep, l can meditate or listen to ‘Nisargadatta’, who I regard as the Jnana Master, like Ramana! Nisargadatta, just speaks Truth about the nature of Self and Consciousness! All you need do is test it for yourself!
Everything is a boon once you understand its dimensions. The possibilities of reinvention or fresh discoveries will go on and on once you respect the situation you’re in.’
The Artist Parting with his Creations
An Artist of our Times, Sunyata is prolific in producing thousands of art pieces. He says that when people buy his art, letting go of some art pieces can be difficult…but he wants his work to be shared. He revels in knowing that his work hangs on walls worldwide and is loved and enjoyed. Collectors call him about how his Art has transformed a room or a home. Sunyata paints because this is what his Self does…a true expression of a person unapologetically living his Self’s love to Be!
‘You are a collector as soon as you purchase one piece of Art. When you start collecting, you have a piece of gold or a gem created above ground from someone’s imagination and talent with these wonderful accessible materials. It is a priceless expression that allows you to express yourself through the type of collector you decide to become.
I am so grateful for everyone who is part of my Art world, from the making of materials I use to the people who transport the Art and, of course, everyone who decides to Collect a piece of my Art. I find it all a miracle.’