Philip Wolfhagen - Visual Arts Case Study

Maeve Doherty, 10YVA

Philip Wolfhagen.

Biography:

Born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1963, Philip Wolfhagen is recognized as one of Australia’s leading contemporary landscape painters. Wolfhagen lives and works in Longford Tasmania where he can be inspired by the atmospheric landscape of northern Tasmania and the emotive qualities of light and weather. Philip Wolfhagen studied at the Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart from 1983 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1987 before moving to Sydney, where he studied at the Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney in 1990. He returned to live and work in Tasmania in 1996. Since then he has held over 35 solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth WA and Washington DC. In 2013 a survey exhibition covering 25 years of Wolfhagen’s work, Illumination: The art of Philip Wolfhagen was staged by Newcastle Art Gallery and Tasmanian Museum Art Gallery, went on to tour nationally. His work is also held in several public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Newcastle Art Gallery, New England Regional Art Museum, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, TarraWarra Museum of Art and Art bank.

Body of Work:

To appreciate the art of Philip Wolfhagen one must be tolerant of repetition. Few Australian artists are more devoted to the series approach to painting: keeping to a particular theme, making small changes in color and tone on continuous works until the theme is exhausted. Wolfhagen specializes in subjective landscape works with the continuous subject of ‘earth, sky and sea’. He is fretful with the surface of paint and his technique of mixing wax with paint results in a wonderful, buttery quality – a joy in the medium. His landscapes are also his own personal, subjective responses, which in turn engage the viewer in their own absorption. The landscape paintings lead us simultaneously into different interpretations. We see the suggestions of reality yet we also read an obsession with the surface, an infinite terrain that goes beyond realistic detail into the realms of abstraction. Above all there is the mood of mystery within a peaceful suspension of time.

Influences:

Philip Wolfhagen acknowledges references to almost all periods of art history from the 17th century to the present, suggesting his paintings can be seen as a “synthesis of time”. Wolfhagen’s classical themes and strict linear design can be seen as referencing the enlightenment movement (1600 - 1700’s), his conjuring of mood and concomitant emotion references early romanticism (late1700’s), the flattening of his landscape references modernism (1900 - 1950), and his split horizon lines have been described as post-modern (post 1950). Wolfhagen is also heavily influenced by Classical music. The sounds of George Frederic Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Edward Benjamin Britten all echo throughout Wolfhagens’ studios.