eastbourne summer oil on linen, 790 x 790 mm, 2000

days go by New paintings by Jane Pountney. March 6 – 31, 2001 The distorting sunlight of late summer glows from Wellington artist Jane Pountney’s new paintings like a hot day seen through dark glasses. These coastal landscapes, with human figures reduced to minimal silhouettes, linger in the mind’s eye. Their hot colours and high contrasts burn themselves onto the retina, images we couldn’t forget if we tried. The paintings range from postcard-size to a metre or more high, and were all produced over the past summer, mainly around Wellington’s less populated beaches. They celebrate our national love of sand, surf and suntan, but also carry a sense of uncertainty, of scenes which could shift at any time. Jane, who has been exhibiting her work for 20 years, grew up very aware of the fragility of landscape. She was raised on a farm in the foothills of the Ureweras, where the soil blew away as soon as the bush was cleared. She now lives above the Aro Valley, where the human impact on the land is unceasing. The exhibition’s title is from a song by US performance artist Laurie Anderson. "It was her eerie sense of the compression of time and space that led me to choose it," says Jane. "You’re here now in this perfect moment in this golden landscape, but you’ve already moved on as something is pulling you into the future." "The paintings show the moments when the past, present and future are folded in on one another. When the sun is coming up or going down, or you’re sitting mesmerised in the perfect cocoon of a warm car looking out. I wanted a sense of how tenuous yet beautiful, exciting and sensuous the ‘now’ is, because it is already becoming the future."