Who was Ian Gentle? Excerpt from The Gentle Project, a film by David Roach
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 [Music plays]
00:22 When I met Ian, I'd never been to a gallery.
00:25 And most people in Wollongong hadn't.
00:27 And most of the students hadn't.
00:29 I'll go up there and there's just like stuff from the ceiling to the floor.
00:35 There were sticks just hanging from the rafters.
00:41 It was like the most magical place.
00:43 There were piles of sticks.
00:47 There were half-formed sculptures.
00:49 There were fully-formed sculptures.
00:52 I remember kind of looking up and it was like things were inhabiting the space.
00:57 [Music plays]
01:02 He'd spoken about this studio and said, 'Come on down.'
01:07 And he said, 'You can sleep over.'
01:10 It was a kind of orderly chaos that he could sweep a section aside
01:16 to put a mattress down for my wife and I to spend the night on, you know,
01:20 underneath the beautiful window overlooking the ocean.
01:23 And it was all very well organised.
01:26 Stacks of sticks and works on the go.
01:29 And, yeah, it was a wonderful place to visit.
01:32 [Music plays]
01:37 Ian was a maker.
01:40 There was no intellectual baloney about Ian.
01:45 He put things together because he wanted to put them together
01:49 to see what they would look like.
01:52 And that's what artists do.
01:55 It's about curiosity.
01:59 So we'd go out on what he would call a field trip.
02:03 [Music plays]
02:07 I just think he enjoyed getting out of the school
02:10 and just getting out there into nature that he loved so much.
02:14 [Music plays]
02:22 It was methodical.
02:23 You had straightish ones, bendy ones and wriggly ones.
02:27 So they weren't just collected willy-nilly.
02:32 [Music plays]
02:40 As far as Ian getting a job in universities these days,
02:43 not a snowflake's chance in hell.
02:46 It's a sad statement,
02:49 but that's to the great detriment of universities.
02:53 Picasso once said that it wasn't until he,
02:57 Picasso was 40, that he learned how to paint like a child.
03:02 Ian intuitively had that innocent playfulness.
03:08 [Music plays]
03:13 He was an influencer.
03:14 If he was around now, he would be labelled an influencer.
03:18 All he'd need was a social media organiser
03:23 and he would be viral, I'm sure.
03:27 He recognised that I was a single mum.
03:29 I hadn't had access to galleries or the world of art
03:33 or seen art books at all.
03:35 And he just said, everything you need is at your feet.
03:39 I didn't need to feel bad about what I didn't have.
03:43 I don't need to go and buy anything.
03:45 Whatever you want, whatever you need is at your feet.
03:49 [Music plays]
03:52 I love the place with the escarpment and the sea.
03:55 I've seen practically every bit of coast in Australia
03:59 and this is it for me, you know.
04:01 [Ian talking to the crew]
04:05 I'm not moving till I die or they kick me out,
04:10 whatever comes first.
04:11 You know, it's people try to turn it into restaurants and things
04:14 I hope it just remains as it is.
04:17 And I hope it still belongs to the people of Clifton there
04:21 and not in private ownership.
04:23 Hopefully I'll still be alive in 2000 and still be living here
04:26 but who knows.
04:28 Okay.
04:30 [Music plays]
04:36 [Birds chirping]