Peter Godwin

Landscape as Experience

9 August – 8 September 2023

For over 15 years, Peter Godwin was painting, drawing and making prints while pursuing his teaching career, but at the time was hesitant to exhibit his work. He is now recognised as one of Australia’s most accomplished painters and printmakers.

This exhibition presents a spectacular body of hand-painted carborundum reliefs by Godwin, on display in the UK for the first time and includes the inaugural presentation of a new and final colour series. These extraordinary layered calligraphic landscapes grew out of Godwin’s trip to China with fellow painter Euan Macleod to Hong Kong and Guilin, as part of ‘The Painter’s Journey’ sponsored by the Nock Art Foundation. Godwin looked back to Ian Fairweather, creating layered calligraphic landscapes that were Chinese in inspiration, but very different to the traditional brush-and-ink renditions. Wall-sized, these transformative works resulted from several months of endeavour of Godwin working with a master printmaker in England. Immersive in their large-scale, the prints express his gesture of line across the gallery space.

The carborundum process is a mixture of carborundum grits and a bonding agent that sets solid on the plate, thus capturing the mark made and energy. This is then inked up with various colours and wiped down so when the dampened paper is pressed on to the plate and the marks are captured on the paper, in reverse. For Godwin, this method allows for direct and fluid mark-making that aligns with his painting and drawings, enabling gestural marks to be captured on the plates and subsequently printed.

A graduate of the National Art School in Sydney, Peter Godwin lectured in painting, drawing and printmaking at the school for many years. He was awarded the Gruner Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1979 and again in 1985. He has been a recipient of the Mosman Art Prize and was a finalist in the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. A major survey of Godwin’s work is scheduled to be held at Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales, in 2024. His work is held in public collections across Australia including at the National Gallery of Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Government House, Sydney; Gosford Regional Art Gallery; Sydney Institute of Technology Collection; Parliament House, Canberra and Mosman Art Gallery.