August Kleinzahler
Poet

PROSPECT being an abbreviation of PROVINCIALISM IN RETROSPECT.

IN PRAISE OF ANTIPODEAN INDEPENDENCE OF MIND AND SPIRIT

Thinking about the case of Rosalie Gascoigne: an antipodal female of a certain generation, living in the remote suburbs of a remote backwater in a remote country and further isolated by gender and contemporary attitudes towards such. Compelled to develop on her own, she developed a powerful, original sensibility. And when it was exposed, really quite late, to contemporary developments in Sydney, London and New York, this contact precipitated a dramatic efflorescence in her work. The product is not so much original or unique - I see a fair bit of Jasper Johns in the soft-drink and plywood works and Cornell in the box of hers I like - but still very much her own. The point being, that had she gone to the Slade at an impressionable age and been caught up in the contemporary fashions and art market of the time she probably would not have developed to the extent that she did, nor would her work have evinced the uncommon savour and strength so rooted in a particular place and time. This seems a far better way to go than passing through the Royal College of Art at age 23, but rather hard to plan.