Camden realism and storytelling

A local school of art tells a story

Camden realism is a style of art that has appeared in the Macarthur region in recent decades and tells the story of the local area. It was recently on display at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, where the gallery mounted an exhibition displaying the works of Nola Tegel, Patricia Johnson and others.

Artist Marion Boddy-Evans describes a school of art as

a group of artists who follow the same style, share the same teachers, or have the same aims. They are typically linked to a single location.

Local artists Nola Tegel and Patricia Johnson follow a representational style of work pioneered in the local area from the 1970s by artist Alan Baker. Tegel and Johnson were some of Baker’s students who, joined by others, and have created an impressive and vital body of local artwork.

The followers of Camden realism conduct a form of storytelling through their representational style of artwork that documents the ever-changing landscape of the Macarthur region and its cultural heritage.

Campbelltown Arts Centre

Camden realism is regularly exhibited at the Campbelltown Arts Centre and the annual Camden Art Prize.

In 2020 Tegel was commissioned by the Campbelltown Arts Centre to

develop a series of paintings that capture glimpses of Campbelltown’s history amongst an ever-changing landscape.

Then & Now Catalogue

The Campbelltown Arts Centre mounted these works in an exhibition called ‘Then and Now‘, which ran from March to May 2021.

The Campbelltown Arts Centre was established in 2005 and boasts that it is a regional creative hub.  The gallery encourages local artists to take risks using various techniques from new to traditional, including Baker’s representational style of realism.

The Tegel commission

The brief for the Tegel commission stated that she

‘develop a series of paintings that capture glimpses of Campbelltown’s history amongst an ever-changing landscape’.

Storytelling is the essence of Tegel’s artwork, and the exhibition catalogue states her body of artwork has documented

‘the built environment and landscape of the Campbelltown CBD ahead of imminent growth and continuous change’.

Storytelling is an essential element of the creative process, and artist Courtney Jordon argues that:

Storytelling often comes naturally to artists. Sometimes the story starts on a single canvas or sheet of paper and doesn’t end until a gallery full of paintings, a suite of drawings, a set of illustrations, a series of comic strips or an entire graphic novel.
Certain subject matters compel an artist to revisit them again and again, building on a concept or pushing it in different directions. The narrative can be a visible part of the artwork in the form of a written story. But oftentimes, it acts as an invisible framework that guides an artist through the creative process.

Tegel is a storyteller and she has created a narrative that fulfilled the commission brief with empathy and vision. This was based on her understanding of the area’s sense of place and community identity as a growing community on Sydney’s urban fringe. The exhibition catalogue states that

Tegel’s accomplished documentation of Campbelltown captures the artists’ attachment to familiar outlooks and awe of the growing community.

‘Then and Now’, Exhibition catalogue

The essence of Tegel’s artwork is storytelling as she gives a visual palette to the aspirations and expectations of the local community of local’s and new arrivals by capturing the meaning and essence of place on the canvas.  

Sydney’s urban fringe is a zone of transition where hope and loss,  and dreams and memories are shaped and re-shaped by a shifting sea of urbanisation.  Tegel has produced a body of work that tells the story of  subtle nuances across the landscape that are only understood by those who have experienced them.  She reminds us all that the border between the rural and the urban fringe is a constantly shifting feast.

Campbelltown is a landscape of change as it has been since the area was proclaimed by Governor Macquarie in 1820. Initially, as a settler society dispossessing the Dharawal of their country, and in the 20th century, urban dwellers dispossessing Europeans of their bucolic countryside.

Tegel has witnessed these challenges through her interpretation of the area’s cultural landscapes in an evocative fashion, and in the process, captured Campbelltown’s sense of place.

The notes in the exhibition catalogue argue that Tegel has drawn here artistic influences from various sources. Amongst these have been working with artist Barbara Romalis and being a foundational member of artist Alan Baker’s art classes at Camden.

Camden realism and Alan Baker

Baker created what might be called the Camden Realist School of art. He was a follower of the Realist tradition and shunned sentimentalism, modernist abstract and avant-garde styles.

Baker’s influence on Tegel is evident in the ‘Then and Now’ exhibition collection, where it is represented by her ability to capture Campbelltown’s sense of place without sentimentalism or abstraction.

In the 1970s Baker encouraged a realist style amongst students at his Camden Public School art classes, which included Nola Tegel,  Patricia Johnston, Olive McAleer, Rizwana Ahmad, and Shirley Rorke.

Baker encouraged a Plein Air painting style,  a tradition that

 goes back to the French Impressionists in the mid-19th century by introducing paints in tubes. Before this, artists made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigments powder with linseed oils. 

In Australia the school of Heidelberg School of artists regularly painted landscapes en plein air, and sought to depict daily life from the 1890s.

Tegel displayed her deft skills as a practitioner of this style in her 2019 Maitland Regional Art Gallery exhibition called ‘In the Light of the Day’. Her artworks were described as coming

 from a long standing tradition of painting en plein air, artwork created ‘in the moment’, painted and worked on in situ.  

mrag.org.au/whats-on/nola-tegel-in-the-light-of-the-day/(opens in a new tab)

In 2018 Tegel documented the historic colonial Victorian homestead Maryland at Bringelly     when she was privately commissioned ‘to create 60 paintings.’ These paintings have told the story of one of the Cowpastures most important colonial mansions and farms built between 1820 and 1850. (Then & Now Catalogue)

Patricia Johnston

Another member of the Camden Realist school is Camden-based artist Patricia Johnston.

Johnston is the ‘2021 Focus Artist’ at the Campbelltown Arts Centre for the ‘Friends Annual and Focus Exhibition’.

Another prodigy of Alan Baker and a fan of the plein air tradition Johnston says that Baker

Revealed the challenge of capturing changing light conditions in open-air painting. The immediacy of this technique and the ability to analyse complex visual scenes established a groundwork that has greatly influenced my painting. The environment became by studio.

Friends Annual & Focus Exhibition Catalogue 2021

Realism on display

Camden realism’s outstanding body of work is a collection of Alan Baker’s paintings, sketches, and other works at the Alan Baker Art Gallery Macaria in John Street Camden. The gallery presents the Alan Baker Collection, which is

a colourful portrayal of an artist’s life in 21st Century Australia.

Alan Baker Art Gallery Flyer

Camden realism is encouraged every year in the Camden Art Prize, which was established in 1975. The acquisitive art prize has a host of categories attracting a mix of artist styles, including traditional representational works.

Smaller exhibitions of Camden realism add to body of work. In 2019 local artists Patricia Johnson, Nola Tegel, Bob Gurney, and Roger Percy mounted an exhibition at Camden Library called ‘Living Waters of Macarthur’. The body of artworks told a variety of stories of the local area in a visual form and captured the essence of place for viewers of local landscapes.

Art as storytelling

The body of work that has grown around Camden realism illustrates the ability of art to tell a story about place. The art style encourages a sense of emotional attachment to a locality by telling stories about the landscapes that surround the community.

Camden realism offers a visual interpretation of storytelling of Macarthur landscapes and the communities within it. This body of work documents the changes that have taken place across the local area from pre-European times to the present, illustrating that all these landscapes are transitional.

Perhaps leaving the last word to artist Courtney Jordon, who says:

Even if they are not aware of it, visual artists often develop some sort of narrative in their work..

Camden realism is a school of art that documents the local area in a different form of storytelling.