Sutherland has been an avid adventurer and armchair traveller since he was a child. His capacity to plunge into a meaningful imaginative journey through images is at times as visceral an experience as his actual trips through Taiwan, Vietnam and South Africa. He is a passionate collector of picture books, relishing the curious scenes of landscapes, animals and plants that historic explorers have published, whether in pursuit of vague scientific credence or nostalgic reflection.
For his latest solo exhibition at Salon Ninety One titled Field Notes, Sutherland has embodied the position of the explorer and amassed an amazing collection of drawings, paintings and prints of his imaginative adventures through images. He is contently seduced by the faded colour palettes of old books or early photographs and finds innovative expression for this passion in new techniques featured on Field Notes for the first time. These include his first risographs – a form of digital printing that uses colour separations – and impasto oil paintings on primed paper.
In Field Notes Sutherland crafts a wistful portrait of the adventurer-explorer from yesteryear. His saturation in experiences mediated by book, film or documentary has led him to exploit a variety of artistic surfaces and painted marks in the exhibition. Through digital print, oil paint, acrylic and drawings, Sutherland invites viewers to immerse themselves in an imaginative journey through picture places of wonder.
Words by Natasha Norman
