Chantal de Kock on Petrichor – a Living Arts Canberra interview
Chantal de Kock in conversation with Barbie Robinson.
We were delighted to welcome Barbie Robinson from Living Arts Canberra to Tyger Gallery on opening weekend to record a conversation with artist Chantal de Kock about her beautiful new solo show Petrichor, now showing until 8 February.
In this warm, thoughtful chat, Chantal speaks about the meaning of petrichor (that unforgettable scent of rain on dry earth), her love of clouds and weathered light, and how she works with earth pigments to create paintings that hold a sense of calm, relief, and renewal.
🎧 Listen to the full audio interview here.
👉 View all works from Petrichor here.
Interview transcript
(Barbie Robinson – Living Arts Canberra, in conversation with Chantal de Kock)
Barbie Robinson (Living Arts Canberra):
I am utterly delighted to be once again in Yass at Tyger Gallery, this time with artist Chantal de Kock, whose beautiful work Petrichor is now showing until the 8th of February. Welcome to you.
Chantal de Kock:
Thank you so much, Barbie. It's a pleasure to be here with the beautiful team at Tyger.
On petrichor – “that release after the rain”
Barbie:
Petrichor is something very dear to my heart. It's the scent of the earth and damp that we get before rain – especially before rain. It’s such a wonderful scent that just fills your body with delight. So I can understand why you would want to base a whole show on that idea, but tell me why you did.
Chantal:
I think it's that feeling of relief. Sometimes we'll have those days where it's so hot and overbearing and we feel like the heat's just too much. Then those beautiful storm clouds roll through and we see that rain come across our landscape and fall to the ground. It feels like refreshment after the heat.
And I think sometimes in our emotional landscapes we can have those feelings where life’s a lot. So for me, the work becomes that feeling of release after the rain.
On clouds, mist and atmosphere
Barbie:
The works in the gallery are of different sizes, but all of them are dominated by cloud. It’s a great skill when an artist can capture cloud – and by goodness, you've got it so beautifully. Tell me about your relationship with clouds.
Chantal:
I think the clouds for me have a peacefulness to them. They allow me to get lost in them sometimes. I’ll often be driving home and I’ll have to pull over to take photographs of the clouds because they’ve captured my imagination.
If I go for a walk in our local area and I see those clouds coming across, I feel that sense of relief from the heat. In Gippsland we get lots of rain, so our region is very lush and green.
Driving up for the show, I noticed it’s very dry here – and the rain really is needed. So it’s that feeling of needing connection to the landscape, and finding peacefulness in the sky.
On earth pigments and building a palette
Barbie:
We see a really consistent palette in the show – ochres and turquoises and greys and whites. Tell me a little about your choice of palette.
Chantal:
I ground my work with earth pigment. I’ll collect local stones from wherever I’m travelling – often just from the roadside – and grind them down in a mortar and pestle, then mix them with a medium to make paint.
I also use other paint as well – acrylic, pastel, inks – various materials that end up in the piece.
I also make a “mother colour”. I’ll take all the colours on my palette and mix a small pile of colour together. Then when I pour out each colour, I add that mother colour to each one so all the work has harmony through it and feels united.
Occasionally I’ll use a colour by itself to make it pop. There’s a work where I’ve used blue on its own because I wanted that effect in that piece. But in general, I’m trying to keep the work harmonised, so you get that peacefulness throughout.
On Belgian linen (and scale)
Barbie:
I note that you're painting on Belgian linen. Tell me what’s special about it.
Chantal:
Belgian linen is so beautiful to work on. It gives a real texture – you can see it coming through in some of the pieces. You get a little bit spoiled when you work on Belgian linen. It’s a bit like drinking fine wine – you don’t want to go back to anything less after you’ve had a taste of the good stuff.
The largest piece I did on unstretched canvas, so that was different for me. I hadn’t worked in that way before, but it was equally fun.
On becoming an artist
Barbie:
Tell me about you and how you became an artist.
Chantal:
I’ve always been quite creative. I come from a family of creative people. My nana used to paint Wedgwood China in England, and my mother’s an artist now.
I did art through high school – painting, pottery, photography – but I didn’t have opportunities beyond school to do further art education. I’ve always found ways to be creative at home, and as my children got older I was able to return to painting more seriously.
We bought an old general store with a cottage attached about five years ago, and there’s a grain store at the back that has become my studio. Having a dedicated space where I can leave everything set up has been fabulous. I’m still juggling work and family, but it means I can just walk in and get started straight away.
On landscape, memory, and the “way through”
Barbie:
There’s a really dreamlike quality about your work… a sense of vastness and space… and that feeling of travelling down into the gullies to contemplate things, and to feel embraced.
Chantal:
Being in a landscape – walking in a space – is where we reconnect back to ourselves. We have so much pressure in our everyday lives, and we can be hurried all the time. We don’t remember to stop and have those moments of peace and calm that we need.
When the world feels heavy, that’s where I want to be. I want to be in nature and feel that calm and peacefulness.
I think that’s what I would really love for people to feel in my work – a reminder to connect back to nature when life feels heavy. We really need more peacefulness in our homes.
Barbie:
There’s always a way through.
Chantal:
Yes. That’s the main theme of Petrichor – to have a way to take the parts of our life that have been heavy and work through them. Through creativity, and through time connecting back to nature, we can find healing – and find the light on the other side.
Visit the show
Petrichor by Chantal de Kock is now showing at Tyger Gallery until 8 February.
📍 Tyger Gallery, Yass
