Oranges (Why I’m Not A Poet), 2023

I have gone through phases of experimenting with lots of different mediums since I was very young but have always struggled to stick to one mode of expression or one style. My collage and painting and poetry practices have been running in parallel for about six years now, but lately it feels as though all the seemingly disparate ingredients are starting to come together. I had been thinking about putting the collage into the painting for a long time. I had tried it a couple of times and it didn’t work. This time I painted the oranges from my friend’s tree onto an abstract painting I thought looked like a foggy mirror and then my eyes fell on the sardines can on the floor. I had been carrying it around for months in a pile of cut outs and never stuck it down anywhere. I stuck it on the painting with blu tac and sent it to my friend John as a joke. He texted back “You put sardines in it” and then they stayed there. I called the painting ‘Oranges’ and then remembered Grace Hartigan’s series ‘Oranges’ which were inspired by Frank O’Hara’s poems ‘Oranges: 12 Pastorals’. In his poem ‘Why I Am Not a Painter’ O’Hara describes writing the poems, while never mentioning the oranges themselves, and watching Mike Goldberg add and remove sardines to his painting titled ‘Sardines’. Initially the poem is about the variance between different modes of expression but ultimately O’Hara reveals more about the similarities. I had also added the blossoms, which now feel symbolic of a point of unfolding development in my practice. Every so often the stumbling through experimentation and following intuitive clues will lead to a moment of cohesion. These moments of convergence and synchronicity are what really excite and inspire me in my art practice and in life.

Georgie Kite (b.1983) is a multidisciplinary emerging artist based in Yuin country since 2016 with her husband and three young children. Georgie completed a Bachelor of Arts and Humanities in English Literature and studied Photomedia at the ANU School of Art and Design, completing her BFA with distinction from the UNSW School of Art and Design where she was awarded graduating prizes for Innovation and Excellence from Dinosaur Designs and Outstanding Performance in Photomedia from the Australian Centre for Photography. Following art school, Georgie travelled extensively on the east coast of Australia, working on photographic and written projects concerned with connection to the landscape. In recent years her experimental practice has become increasingly focused on painting and collage.