From his studio and garden on Darug land, on the fringe of the Wollemi National Park, Dan Kyle observes the changes in the landscape on an immediate daily basis. Fluctuations in light, temperature and season filter through his palette. Following severe drought in 2019 the property narrowly escaped the Gospers Mountain fire, a part of the bushfires that ravaged the Blue Mountains. And within months after the fire, the exposed landscape faced major rain with the rivers below flooding.
The recent major environmental extremes and shifts have pushed Kyle’s painting and process to expand in response. Paper daisies were prolific after the fires, preferring the disturbed ground to grow and spread. Flowers of the fringes, the paper daisies mark the zone between humans and the wilderness. This invasive, yet beautiful flower impressed itself upon the landscape, and compelled Kyle to print it and other found flowers and plants repeatedly, meditatively.
Kyle’s practice extends out of the studio, planting, caring for and then harvesting many flowers from plants like Camellia Japonica and Dahlia for printing. Observing the new characters emerging in the bush and in his garden, Kyle’s paintings are records of the seasons. After the rains waterfalls stream through entwined with an abundance of flowers and colours. In a quickly changing landscape, the micro and macro jostle and compete to impress themselves onto the seemingly-infinite space of the country around him.
Dan Kyle is a graduate of the National Art School in Sydney. He is a 2020 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship recipient. He is a three-time finalist of the Paddington Art Prize (2019, 2015, 2012 – Highly Commended), the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize (2016 - highly commended), the Salon des Refuses at S.H. Ervin Gallery (2013), the Hawkesbury Art Prize (2011) and the Mosman Art Prize (2019, 2014). His work has been exhibited throughout Australia in numerous solo and group shows and is held in the collection of the Australian Catholic University, the Macquarie University and many private collections nationally.
