By train from Perugia to Terontola & Landscape lines no. 1

Ken Whisson relocated from Melbourne to Perugia in central Italy in the late 1970s. In Italy, Whisson’s style and technique underwent a significant change: he began painting on linen instead of composition board and allowed the white primed background to become as important as the brightly coloured, floating shapes and lines which hover over the ground. One subject which recurs in Whisson’s works from this period is the experience of travelling through the landscape by train or car.

By train from Perugia to Terontola & landscape lines no. 1, 1987, 1988 visually reads like a sequence of vignettes, seen en route between two locations. It is a two-sided painting, and either side can be displayed. The two year dates add to the duality of this work, but rather than documenting two specific train journeys it is a composite image recalling the experience of travelling through the landscape and the elements from it that impressed themselves on the artist’s visual memory.