Stephen Eastaugh’s art humorously portrays his sense of extreme opposite states co-existing within the landscapes he has moved through:
I have often been engaged with the idea of extremes in my artwork. My physical movement over the years seems to bolster this. In 1983 I hitchhiked across the Sahara desert and after extracting myself from West Africa I went camping in Iceland. My studio in Antarctica was geographically balanced by boarding an Icebreaker to the North Pole. I have wandering through Broome’s burning red pindan desert-beaches and Ladahki temples on Himalayan peaks, watched tropical storms in Bangkok and bounced on 15 metre waves south of Patagonia. It is not very surprising that I have used titles such as:-
Hotwaterbottleicecube
Sexydanger
Goinghomecoming
Offal confetti
Wondersickness
Grilled Ice
Sacred and bored
Calmcyclone
Domesticexotic
Lost Cartography
Missile Nipples
Polar Garden
Sciencegod
Someone wanted to marry me and someone wanted to kill meWhy this melding of opposites, combining BITTER-SWEET extremes, joining ideas that are miles apart or just differing? By placing two odd elements together that are opposed or at least not cohesive as a unit I create a kind of oxymoron. I mark out extreme conceptual boundaries with contradictory titles and contrasting PRETTY-MESSY or AWFULLY-NICE images. This creates an absurd and sometimes SERIOUSLY-HUMOROUS space where the mind can run wild exploring all the terrain between two distant poles. Between the domestic and the exotic we can find a lot of CLEARLY-AMBIGUOUS activity and plenty of landscape. This STRANGELY-FAMILIAR space is where I ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE park my MOBILE-HOME. It is where I drink a DRY-MARTINI on my non-stop WORKING-HOLIDAY and I feel as if I am STILL-MOVING somewhere.
http://www.stepheneastaugh.com.au/news.htm