Donna Feneley transports observers to distant planes then demand they be present., still and alone within her landscapes. Typically, her works are plays on light, from looming skies to dark compositions enlivened by blazes or glimmers of sun to brighter, imagined places that are whimsical and even magical.
In some of my works, darkness dominates the landscape, which is interrupted with splinters of light. In many the looming sky is heavy over the earth, suggesting an ominous storm. A sliver of light penetrates the terrain, creating a glimpse of the stillness or turbulence or beauty of the landscape. Often I aim to capture the whimsical childhood moments, such as lying on the riverbank and looking up through the trees to the vast sky. The child is not present in the picture; rather, the viewer is the child. My paintings can be at once foreboding and yet inviting. In most of my works, humans are absent – and yet I ask the viewer to be present, to be alone in the space. I often apply an undercoat of thin red cadmium to the paper or canvas, to add warmth, before building up thin layers of oil paint to create the composition. Some of my paintings are of no particular place. Rather, they are places of my imagination – and the looseness in the brush strokes helps in the conjuring of these landscapes. They can range from the illusory to the hyper real. These themes have preoccupied my art practice for several years, spurred by my wanderings through dark places and by my memories of a childhood in the outback, on the Hay Plains.