Owen Ratner – Blue Tide

Owen Ratner’s exhibition Blue Tide draws inspiration from the structures he sees in and around his local area. While most scenes may not be recognisable as Pyrmont, it is elements of this harbourside enclave – pylons, silos, docks, wharves, industrial lighting, aprons, warehouses, parks and container ships – that lend his paintings their stark and evocative geometry. It is the particular light and atmospheric conditions of Sydney Harbour that lend alternately to the dark and hazy skies that give his paintings a disquieting sense or the flat and harsh sunshine that reduces buildings and landscapes to their edges.

“I have lived near the inner-city harbour for many years and regularly walk around the foreshore, passing industrial areas, the fish markets, parks and residential areas. It was nearly 20 years before I began to appreciate the geometry of the built environment and that I could paint with straight lines. I use known vistas of harbours, oceans, skies, parks, docks, built structures and natural objects in an abstract way. I might draw an initial rough sketch, but for the most part, my paintings evolve on the canvas.” 

Through his art, Owen strives to create a mood of harmony with some tension between nature and the constructed. He aims to create a sense of being in the moment, not just a representation of what is there. Owen’s approach to painting his Blue Tide scenes is to create minimal landscapes, reduce, eliminate, define and hone compositions to essentials, to abstract and to create broad fields of colour.