Nancy Tingey, Over Time
Written by Jacqueline Schultze, curator
Nancy Tingey, Two lives series: Back to the fold, 2004, Herdwick and merino wools, felted, with wool threads and stitched panel, 68cm x 30 m. Image: Wendy Dawes.
Perhaps what Tingey brings most consistently to her work is a sense of wonder and curiosity about the materials she uses and the journeys they take her on, entwined with an unerring sensitivity that is powerful in its elegance and simplicity.
Jacqueline Schultze, Netlines catalogue, 2012
Nancy Tingey has been practicing art for over 60 years. Her artistic journey has taken her from England, to travels through Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Antarctica, and numerous countries in the Asia-Pacific region. She has spent over half a century reflecting on and creating art about her life as a migrant, contemplating the interplay between her home country of England and her adopted home of Australia. And over time, she has been true to her artistic sensibility, that of being attune to the interconnectedness of line, form and materials.
It could be said that fibre is woven into Nancy’s DNA. Brought up in the middle of textile country, Nancy could hear the whirr of the mill machinery on her way to school. Her grandfather and uncle were involved with cotton mill and feltworks operations, and textile remnants brought back to family from overseas travel, found their way into garments skilfully made by her mother, Nancy and her sisters.
She studied Fine Art at the University of Durham, specialising in stained glass and painting. As a student of the groundbreaking Developing Process designed by Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore in the 1960s in the UK, she was influenced by abstract art movements and the nature of materials. She then explored these leadings further thorough her practices in a variety of visual art media.
Community, networking and being connected to the landscape are important aspects of Nancy’s work ethic. As evidenced even in her very early works, she has always been inspired by landscape forms. For her ”...it is...always about respecting the natural environment, exploring its aesthetic possibilities and allowing the materials to dictate form. The meditative process of gathering the materials generate(s) the feeling of being at one with my surroundings.”1
To bring together the works for this exhibition Nancy and I have delved into her extensive archive of journal articles and reference materials, retrieving packed away artworks and negotiating with several owners of previously purchased artworks to loan their cherished pieces. Preparing for the show has been hard work—"a real eye opener” for Nancy. But it has been rewarding work as well, as she reviewed the trajectory and output of her artistic journey.
Over Time is also about the present. The newest works in the exhibition include subtle, monochromatic watercolours of Lake George / Weereewa created in May this year. These sit solidly within her oeuvre, capturing the nuances of this particular landscape to which she has responded countless times since first coming to Australia.
1 2113: A Canberra odyssey, Canberra Museum and Gallery, 2013, exhibition catalogue, p.25.