The land surrounding the home is a work in progress undergoing continual change – a sculpture here and a found object there, pottery on poles and pictures on verandas – some are made by friends and others discovered in showrooms – It isn’t the autograph that matters it’s the effect the object has on the whole. It’s his and Caroline’s mark on the landscape.
A visit to Betts’ studio is like being in Aladin’s cave - it’s full of precious objects that are his pictures. They hang on every wall, some are decades old - some are as recent as yesterday. Those on view pulsate and glow, demanding your attention not leaving you rest until the inspection is made! Others languish in racks silently awaiting discovery. Betts takes quiet notice of your pleasure - he never seeks affirmation of approval, nor does he explain the work.
He continues to paint while you wander through the assembled pieces, he is silent until a question is posed – his response is immediate and his work uninterrupted. Occasionally he expresses an opinion about the furry nocturnal visitors that leave little signs of their company in between the canvases – he would never use force to deter them, the infrequent curse satisfies his irritation.
Bindoon is his home and the North West is his main inspiration – Betts would journey North two or three times a year for weeks at a time, not painting just replenishing the memory - making colour notes and drawings that would get lost in the studio and not be referred to again. Memory plays a big part in his painting he never has a pre-conceived idea when starting a work and often says that the picture “just paints itself.” Capriccio could be a good description, as he takes bits from here and bits from there that form the whole and jog the memory of a region or visual experience. It is only then that a title is applied.
In a statement issued before a joint exhibition with Cedric Baxter in 2007 Betts wrote in part “ I think artists have to develop an affinity with their subject matter and try to get to the essence of things to understand them – not just concentrate on minute particulars. My subject is landscape not necessarily by choice, but rather by what I instinctively respond too most strongly. That is, landscape not seen as a record of a particular visual experience but as a generalisation from many experiences – the distillation of an essential form.
Betts was trained in London at an exciting time and most of his contemporaries stayed there, anchored to the familiar - many became famous. None became intimate with the North of Western Australia or the landscapes of other exotic lands like Nigeria or Morocco. Betts retains the memory of those places firmly in the mind. He is the link between formal English teachings of the fifties applied to the surreal landscapes he has absorbed, be they in Europe Africa or Australia – his style is almost an Auerbach out-back.
He was asked once if it bothered him being a landscape painter – he said that he had no choice, it’s what he does, what he instinctively responds too. Being the reserved type what he failed to disclose was that if he was required tomorrow to paint cityscapes or still life or portraits in a realist or impressionist style, his skill, training and experience guarantees that he could. He is not one dimensional, just immersed in his subject.
Mac Betts was in his fortieth year when he first saw the Australian North West through an experienced and unprejudiced eye. He has been painting elements of it for almost forty years since and has never once tired of the subject. Saving bereavement and ill health, he is in his studio every day enjoying the act of painting and stimulating his memory of places seen and helping the pictures to paint themselves.
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