YOU’VE probably heard the expression “see Naples and die.” Now Canberra artist Martin Paull has come up with his own variation in the exhibition called “Beyond first impression – See Canberra and Die.” 

As he explains, it could mean “Canberra is such a beautiful place you must see it before you die,” and indeed the paintings in this exhibition suggest Canberra is more layered than it first appears.

The show contrasts two types of landscapes, impressionistic semi-abstract paintings of great beauty and stark bushfire images.

Has Canberra become a more three dimensional place after 100 years, Paull asks?

He has more questions: “In Canberra the landscape is the dominant feature; it has been contrived that way? Have you seen those unsubscribed spaces – left alone (perhaps forgotten), where the previous environment shows through?”

In his smaller paintings he looks at the balancing of “filled in” with open space, familiar places in Canberra which he has chosen to paint either because of the impression they have made on him, or because they are visually interesting.

Paull used his mobile phone to capture particular places and notes that the phone’s camera distorts the image, which he further abstracted in painting, capturing both a physical and emotional sense of the landscape.

The large paintings in the exhibition use bushfire imagery, an expressionistic look at people in a claustrophobic, blackened landscape. “The bush is a stage where things happen: burnt-out, shot-up, at times apocalyptic and fearful.”

Paull sees these paintings as possessing a spiritual dimension, with titles like “The Burning Bush” and “The Sixth Seal.” The painting, “The Arsonist, This is How I Nurture My Soul,” which is in this year’s Blake Prize for Spiritual Art.

“See Canberra and Die,” M16 Artspace, 21   Blaxland Crescent, Griffith March 7 – 24.