Lynda Hyde

You have had a long and eclectic career in the arts in magic and mime performance, set design, costume design, dance, has this influenced your painting practice, if so how?

Painting came first so, that was my first love, geometric painting was my first love and I discovered that in the 70s and I think that the graphic style of it still has followed through in everything that I have done, even up to my hair.

When we were performing I wasn’t actually doing paintings, but I was always doing design. I use to make all our props and paint all of our props and they basically all had my designs on those props. If we were doing a show, if we were doing set design that was always the part that I really enjoyed to do which is the part which I would do myself so if we had flats to paint or what have you, that would be my job which got be back into painting. So I never really left painting but I left doing paintings. 

It is almost like you have had this aesthetic that has completely come through in everything you have done.

It is funny you don’t really think about that until people ask you questions. I don’t really think about it but when I look back on what I have done and how I have done it, it has always been there. I started with drafting which was my first job out of school but all through school I was going to go to art school and that was my plan. I was going to do commercial art which is what the course was called and I went to enrol and I looked around and I just thought “this isn’t for me’, “this isn’t me” and basically at the 11th hour I changed my mind and went into drafting and I am glad I did because I wouldn’t have done well at art school. I always enjoyed drafting and I am glad that I took that track and it would have been nice to go into design but I didn’t, and my world just travelled on and I just fell into one thing after another, after another and I have had a great time doing it all but I always found a way to get the geometric art in there somewhere.

How does your painting process begin and what influences your choices on, size, colour and subject?

Well, I kind of have a system I guess which also comes out in the way the work is presented in the end. It is very methodical, so I start a painting and I finish that painting, I don’t do another painting in between, I continue that one. When I start there is a number of different way I start a painting, sometimes it will be a sketch like a physical sketch, other times I will troll through other designs that I have done that I have on record on my computer. I might tweak that or do it in a different colour so it reflects my mood and quite often I do things in threes. I will exhaust something in three moves, not quite exhaust it but  I will carry it on in three paintings that have a similar theme because I am in that zone, then I will move onto something else. Colour is really important to me but not a lot of colour, I am particular in the colours that I like and I am particular in the colours that will go together based on my personal feeling. 

I have a certain bend towards certain colours and I will sidle those in wherever I can but sometimes it won’t work that way and it is really important to me. It is a design element rather than an artistic element, and the colour has to work for the design, it may not work for the viewer, they might think ‘thats hideous’ but for me, for my eye and for the design, it all has to work together, whether that is the colours complimenting each other or whether they are actually rebelling again each other, I like both of those things. If I really want something to stand out I will get some colour that will just pop next to each other, almost drive you mental.

You are exhibiting works in this show that are an evolution from your other pieces, what has drawn you into the direction of more architecturally inspired painting as opposed to purely hard edge geometric ones?

It is interesting I have had a little change in my thinking for this exhibition. I originally saw myself as being a non objective artist and then when you are in a gallery and people are looking at your work and they say ‘that reminds me of something’ and you think to yourself ‘its not supposed to, it non objective’ and you realise that people are seeing things completely different from how you anticipate it and so I thought that it was interesting when people say ‘oh that looks like a building’ and I thought, why don’t I explore that for a change and go with it. Even though, they are nothing like buildings really, there is some hint that there is an architectural feel about the work, you know, my buildings would never stand up. I am abstracting that, so instead of doing sort of landscapes and  people I am abstracting the feel of a street scape. So at the moment I have gone down that track and that is where I am at. 

I think sometimes it is just a feeling and it doesn’t actually relate to any real building, it is just a made up thing in my head but in this exhibition I have drawn on my favourite building of all time which is Australia square, more so the plaza building that is next to it and I worked in that building when I worked for Civil and Civic working on Harry Sidlers designs but I have always loved that building and it gives me inspiration. The Australia square precinct is just amazing for its time. When it came out in the 60s there was nothing like it, it was the first building that had its own plaza area where people could sit which was unheard of in Sydney. You can’t believe it now, you can’t comprehend that people didn’t sit around outside and eat, but it didn’t happen before this building was there.

That building is what got me into really starting to paint geometric painting because there was art there on display, there was hand picked works by Harry Seidler dotted all around the precinct, in the buildings around the central court and they were geometric art and I had never seen it before and it just inspired me to go home and paint like that and really get into it. That building had a huge impact on my whole life, I still love it and go and visit it and I have representations of it in this exhibition. 

What draws you to modernism as an art form - I know perviously you have spoke on modernist values that you align with - can you elaborate on that

I think that it is just something that is in you, there are some people who do landscapes or people who will do their own thing there must just be something that twings in your brain that works for you. Its a visual thing, the art of the 1950-60s, I was brought up on cartoons that were just fantastic, they were, for me, there was the beautiful combination of colour. Its just ingrained from being a kid in the 50s and 60s and everything was very new and colour hadn’t been brought to the fore till the 50s. Before then things were more muted, colour was just put out there and I guess I just took to it. I take to shape and I love the nature world but I don’t have a desire to paint it, I can see it but I could never do it justice so why would I do that?

Harking back to what people see in my artwork, I find it really interesting now and I don’t worry about what people see. The first time someone said ‘that reminds me of such and such’, I was really perplexed by that but now I don’t. If that is what people like and they get enjoyment from that and they see something that possibly reminds them of something that makes them happy that’s fantastic. I can’t dictate, and say ‘this is this and that’s what you have got to see’, It's up to you what you see and I think that is with most art really.

As soon as it goes up on the wall you have to let it go and let people make what they will from it. You get every kind of reaction, especially form the op-art work that I do I have people who just can not look at it they say, “I can’t look at that, its too disturbing’ and other people will be completely mesmerised and it takes their mind somewhere else because it requires so much work for you eyes to see everything that the brain sort of slows down and stops so the can relax and its really interesting how people can give you varying feedback and that people see completely different things which fascinates me.

 Some people when they close their eyes they see colours, I don’t see colours when I close my eyes, I don’t visualise, I don’t have that skill so it all comes out the other way, I have to work it.

For This exhibition what do you hope people experience in this show

I just hope that they get enjoyment from the colour and take their time to remember that everything doesn’t have to have a deep and meaningful. Sometimes you can just look at something and enjoy it without having to think “oh what’s the meaning behind that”, I just think, just enjoy it, enjoy the colour or the black and white. My work is not earth shattering, visually I suppose it is, but it is about the visuals, Its a bit like vivid but in four walls.

There is not that many geometric artists around showing in Australia, its not a big market, so it can be a bit confronting for people, especially when it is on mass, it can be a bit overpowering but if you can just take them as individuals or small groups.

Music is a huge part of my working as well. I love to just being in my studio and paint, it is just the perfect place to be. I love funk, but I like what they call hardcore funk, psychedelic funk also called funkadelic. Its not your mainstream sort of music but I really get on that. I like all sorts of music, jazz, classical, but when i’m painting funk is usually up there. 

Will we hear some Funkadelic on the opening night?

Oh yes we are, a whole lot of it. The music I chose for my exhibition is very specific so its not too out there and more accessible but not accessible in some ways. 

Interviewed by Lucy Abroon

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