Silent Observations continues McVinish's investigation of the landscape and the figure in the landscape. In these new paintings, the scenes depicted are at once familiar but at the same time contain an element of psychological drama. The landscapes and their solitary inhabitants address the viewer's role as filmic voyeur. We are invited to become a participant in the story being portrayed, to attach our own history to the painting. Through the painting we enter into our own story looking for the unexpected, some piece of information that will unveil the mysterious world before us. In The Hill we cannot see what is at the top of the stairs but therein lies the mystery. In Beyond the bridge, we are unsure where the bridge goes but we believe it goes somewhere. The serene nature of the sun worshipper in Lunchtime in the Domain is threatened by the ominous clouds of an approaching storm. Thus these paintings are 'real' in that they depict actual places but they are an amalgam, bits of reality pieced together to make a coherent whole. In these paintings we experience the distance between the familiar and the unknown, the comfortable and the dangerous, the uncertain threshold between hope and fear. We are left with a feeling of premonition, creating a suspension in time and space, borderline between what is and what will be.

Christopher McVinish is a 2011 Archibald Finalist.