Visualizing Monaro: Contributing Factors to the Viewers Perception of Motion in Rosalie Gascoigne's, Monaro, 1989

Abstract

Rosalie Gascoigne’s Monaro, 1989, is a large polyptych image, assembled from sawn wooden soft drink crates arranged into undulating bands across four panels. Observing the work can trigger an animated visualisation for the viewer resulting in the perception of a palpable ‘rhythm’ throughout the piece, reminiscent of the play of wind on the Monaro grasslands of Southern New South Wales. This visualisation can largely be attributed to the visual tensions inherent in the undulating linear trajectories attending the organic grid the artist has used, the multiple fragments of incomplete typography on many of the components, as well as the numerous interstices surrounding each of the components. The presence of these pictorial qualities has the effect of interrupting the viewer’s formation of a cohesive Gestalt, thus triggering the visualisation of a living, moving environment. This paper will argue that the complex intertexture of fragment parts in Monaro, 1989, triggers for the viewer, an animated visualisation akin to that of perceiving the phenomena of wind moving across the Monaro district grasslands of Southern New South Wales.