Stewart MacFarlane @ Australian Galleries

Friday, 21 October 2011

Last night I went to the Collingwood Arts Precinct Open Night, when most galleries within Smith / Peel / Wellington / Derby streets’ perimeter remained open till 9pm. I was rather disappointed with the modest attendance, perhaps due to Melbourne’s unpredictable weather, or perhaps to the fact that most galleries (with the exception of Catherine Asquith) had existing shows on view, the official openings for which had already taken place a few days or weeks prior.

Six venues participated in the event, and I was most interested to see an exhibition or recent works by Stewart MacFarlane at the Australian Galleries. I assume this heralds Stewart’s parting of the ways with his former dealer, Charles Nodrum, with whom he has been for a better part of two decades.

The exhibition contains finished works as well as smaller studies, wherein the artist’s modus operandi is revealed. MacFarlane produces a large body of preparatory studies of nude models, reclining in a variety of poses, their erogenous zones exaggerated and emphasized. His studies also include interior scenes and landscapes, drawn from his immediate environment. Judging from these studies, this peripatetic artist is presently domiciled in Adelaide.

Like a skilful movie director, MacFarlane collates his preparatory sketches into complex psycho-enigmatic mise-en-scenes: nudes by open windows; menacing strangers on rooftops; peaceful-looking suburban street scenes with a violent action taking place almost as an afterthought in the background of the picture.

The whole is executed in bright, lurid colours, a palette which requires a lot of mastery, and in which MacFarlane excels. Luscious reds, succulent greens, sparkling yellows, deep blues and velvety purples are boldly placed side by side, contrasting and bringing out each other’s brilliance. Their vibrant energy is contained, stained-glass like, within thick outlines of black pigment.

MacFarlane belongs to that set of Australian painters who rarely change their subject matter, dominant palette, or style of painting. At the same time, one can hardly decry this ‘sameness’ when the production is consistently good. And if in the past one could detect a certain rush to finish the paintings, which often resulted in poor drawing and slapdash execution of background details, few of such shortcomings (if any) can be detected in this exhibition.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]

Lewis Miller @ Australian Galleries

 

Sunday, 19 June 2011

Lewis Miller @ Australian Galleries

Lewis Miller is undoubtedly among this country’s most outstanding portrait painters. His gifts in this genre are self-evident, and one hardly needs to list his Archibald and Moran accolades to appreciate his talents in this difficult metier. Therefore, I rushed over to see his current exhibition at the Australian Galleries, and like many of his previous shows, it features a cross-section of genres, in which Lewis excels – portraiture, nudes, and still lives.

Lewis’s favourite model is – has been, and by the looks of it will be in the foreseeable future – Hazel. They must have established a symbiotic relationship, for she has been appearing in his paintings for at least a decade. He must have painted her by now in every conceivable position and from every conceivable angle; he is probably so familiar with every curve of her body, every crevice and every cranny, that perhaps the actual act of modelling is no longer necessary, as he is probably able to recreate her form purely from his memory.

But one cannot blame Lewis’s attachment to Hazel: she is generously endowed with a model’s body, with perfect curves of her hips, sinuous lines of her limbs, generous mounds of her breasts. Not having had the privilege to see the model in such intimate state of deshabille, it is also highly possible that by the time she makes it onto Miller’s finished canvas, her features have been regularised and idealised by the artist. She is superbly executed in every picture. Her limbs and torso are masterfully foreshortened in the ‘upside-down’ paintings; and delineated in assured and confident charcoal outlines that flow and undulate around the landscape of her body. Her skin tones are accented with broad brush strokes of skin-coloured pigments, from deep ochres to most delicately effervescent pinks. Large expanses of linen, left exposed by the artist, superbly recreate the textures of her skin as well as of the sheets on which she poses.

Lewis’s still lives could not be faulted either. Lemons, peaches, quinces, pomegranates, and apricots; pilchard, oysters, molluscs and all kinds of fruits de mer, chops and steaks and other cuts of meat are arranged in groups, combinations or by themselves, on canvasses and copper plates of various shapes and sizes, many a painting reminiscent of a Grecian thin and elongated decorative frieze. Lewis’s nature mortes still show a significant influence of Lucian Freud, of whom he is perhaps the most devoted disciple in this country. Freud’s style is perceptible in the thickly layered paint and richly textured surfaces, which, until a decade or so ago Miller also applied to the depiction of his models, though since then he developed his own pared down and raw style which shows off most advantageously his drawing skills and technical abilities.

There’s also a smattering of portraits by the entrance – an obligatory self-portrait or two, a couple of studies of Tom Alberts, and a portrait of a child, all predominantly painted en face, their gaze communicating directly with the viewer. Looking at these portraits, I was struck by the realisation that for at least a decade or so Miller retained the same format for every exhibition. It is always a smattering of nude, still life, and portrait studies. His portraits are frequently worked into larger finished compositions, which wow audiences when shown in Australia’s premier portraiture prizes. However, his nudes and still lives have never breeched that prime essence of being a study. One does begin to wonder whether the works of these genres – like his portraits – would ever lead to a crescendo, a seminal work, or a large scale masterpiece. His superb facility with the brush, colour, drawing, composition, foreshortening notwithstanding, it would be a pity for an artist of such obvious talents to spend the rest of his career on studies, sketches, and preparatory drawings.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but full or partial use is welcome with proper acknowledgement. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]

Portraits @ Leonard Joel May 2011 Sunday Art Auction

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Portraits @ Leonard Joel May 2011 Sunday Art Auction

As always, a quick overview of portraits that were offered at recent art sales. Because of the all-inclusive nature of Leonard Joel’s auctions (as discussed in the previous post), their sales are perhaps the best places to view and find a wide variety of portraits by local and international artists offered on the Australian art market.

While the cross-section of portraits was more exciting in some of their previous offers, the May 2011 Sunday Art Auction also unearthed some interesting, unusual and unexpected items, perhaps none more so than Ernst Buckmaster’s self-portrait from 1926, painted when the artist was in his late 20s. Buckmaster shows himself in a flattering three-quarter turn against an abstracted background; his face boldly lit from the left-hand side, emphasising the shock of bushy black hair, deep-set eyes, prominent nose and chin, and a slightly haughty expression about his mouth and brow. There is something indelibly Edwardian about this self-representation, clearly emulating the bravura style of John Singer Sargent. One has to love the artifice of the portrait, where the artist chose to represent himself standing in a simple painter’s smock, which covers a formal black-tie dress complete with a bowtie and starched collar, as if the artist presages the popular success he would achieve later in life as a fashionable landscape and still-life painter. Estimated at $2,000-$4,000, the portrait sold for $6,600 (IBP).

It is interesting to compare this work to a portrait of the same sitter by Jean Sutherland, obviously painted much later, but displaying the same slightly arrogant and self-assured arching of the brow (sold here en suite with Sutherland’s self-portrait, est. $800-$1,200); or indeed against another self-portrait in the auction, that of Douglas Watson of 1945, who also dashingly portrayed himself with a cigarette in his hand and sporting Hollywood mustachios (est $1,000-$1,500; unsold).

Perhaps my favourite portrait in the auction has to be a charming and lively study by Rupert Bunny of his wife and muse, Jeanne Morel. Painted c. 1895, the portrait predates some of Bunny’s better known, lavish full-length representations of his wife, many of which appeared at the last year’s retrospective of the artist (and discussed within these pages in a number of earlier posts). The portrait depicts Jeanne boldly in clear and sharp profile, lost in an intent conversation with an invisible interlocutor. The liveliness and immediacy of the image has something of an amazing snap-shot quality to it one would normally associate with a photograph rather than a drawing. Her face is executed in beautiful detail, while her dress is but a hint, a suggestion of folds and outlines of puffed sleeves and a late-Victorian bodice. There are echoes of Sargent’s celebrated portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, painted a few years previously in 1892-93, especially in the way Jeanne Morel holds on to the side of the chair with her hand. It is undoubtedly one of the loveliest and surprisingly fresh watercolour portraits I’ve seen by the artist in a long time, and the public must have thought as highly of it as I did: estimated at $3,000-$4,000, the portrait drawing sold for $13,200 IBP, more than four times its lower estimate.

Other portraits on offer included Tony Tuckson’s Matisse-esque interpretation of his wife, Margaret, from the early to mid 1950s (est. $16,000-$20,000, sold $28,800 IBP); David Rankin’s ghostly evocation of his wife, writer Lily Brett, of 1986 (est $1,000-$2,000, sold $2,400 IBP); a rather dashing representation of Violet Teague’s husband (?), Roger Teague, in full riding habit (est $3,000-$5,000, unsold); and a fresh and vibrantly painted portrait of an unknown lady by Archibald Douglas Colquhoun (est. $700-$900, unsold).

Norman Lindsay’s oil Rita of c. 1940s made yet another appearance on the auction block (est. $20,000-$30,000; sold $24,000 IBP); and there was also a lively profile portrait drawing of the same model (est. $1,000-$2,000, sold $3,360 IBP). And since we’re admitting identifiable models into the sphere of portraiture, we can’t go past Peter Churcher’s generously proportioned male nude, Simon Seated, which is unfortunately not the most felicitous creation by this otherwise talented artist (est. $7,000-$9,000, unsold).

As always, there was also a selection of what one of the former auctioneers of this house inspiringly termed ‘instant ancestors’ – portraits of unknown, soberly dressed ladies and gentlemen gazing at the viewer from the 18^th and 19^th Century canvasses, such as an unknown gentleman by an early 19^th-C. British school (est. $1,000-$2,000, unsold); or a copy after George Romney’s portrait of John Askew of Whitehaven, c. 1800 (est. $2,000-$3,000, unsold). Perhaps the most attractive and romantic of the lot is an 18^th-C. Portrait of a Lady by the Swiss François Ferriere, dating from 1786, in full powdered wig and beautifully executed gauze wrap around her shoulders; the lightness of the face, hair, and bodice effectively silhouetted against the overall darkness of the background (est $800-$1,200; sold $1,140 IBP).

This selection shows that portraiture, both as a genre and an area of collecting, continues to fare alive and well in Australia; and it is thanks to the auctions like these that we see gems, rarities, and surprises like those by Bunny, Buckmaster, or Ferriere emerging from the confines of private Australian collections to find new homes, sometimes with surprising (and profitable!) results for their former owners.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Julian Meagher @ Lindberg Galleries

Thursday, 21 April 2011 

Julian Meagher @ Lindberg Galleries

In his current exhibition at Lindberg Galleries, Julian Meagher continues themes and subjects of his previous bodies of work, notably the exploration of masculinity in the context of contemporary culture. The exhibition consists of portraits, still lives, and figure studies, and it is apparently accompanied by a performance (as an installation of a bottle and a bucket and several performance stills would suggest).

Central to the exhibition is one ofAustralia’s icons of masculinity, a slab of VB, a monumental painting of which dominates the show. Majority of the paintings feature most delicately executed Chinese blue and white porcelain vases with traditional decorations. However, at a closer look one begins to notice the presence of a slab or a bottle of VB in each scene as an object of veneration, diplomatic or courtly exchange, or an essential part of a traditional banquet or ceremony. While initially this appears extremely clever, by the time you encounter it for the sixth time in a row, the idea becomes rather laboured and looses its initial strength and cleverness.

Most of the vases are painted with either orchids or quintessentially Australian flowers known as kangaroo paws, which are likewise most delicately and beautifully executed against a predominantly blank background. As such they are somewhat reminiscent of works by Dane Lovett (see an earlier post on this artist’s works). However, if the self-referentiality (still-lives as self-portraits) soon becomes apparent in Lovett’s work, I personally do not believe that Meagher’s still-lives carry the same semantic connotation.

On the other hand, in such works as Only Real Men Wear Pink and Boys Don’t Cry, psychological overtones of Meagher’s paintings and the overall narrative of the exhibition become more apparent, as the artist juxtaposes such staples of contemporary masculinity as tattoo-covered bodies, muscular torsos, and clenched fists with softer, emotional, feminine sides of the human psyche.

The exhibition also features two most excellent portrait heads, one of which is a self-portrait, showing the artist as a most gifted and talented practitioner of the genre. I believe these were painted from life, which is a sad and fast-disappearing rarity in the contemporary portrait practice (where so many artists prefer the quick fix of a digital camera!). The faces are well-constructed, showing the artist’s intimate knowledge of physiognomy. Each portrait is a product of a complex layering, and skin tones are rendered in a multitude of most delicate glazes. The resulting three-dimensionality of the portraits is quite astonishing, and faces seem to leap out from the two-dimensional constraints of the canvas.

www.lindbergcontemporary.com.au

www.julianmeagher.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Bill Henson @ Tolarno Galleries

Wednesday, 20 April 2011 

Bill Henson @ Tolarno Galleries

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition of recent photographs by Bill Henson at Tolarno Galleries. It features a cross-section of the artist’s favourite subjects, including nudes, landscapes, and photographs of the crowds. The latter consists of two images undoubtedly taken by the artist at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg, in front of two remarkable Rembrandts from their collection – The Return of the Prodigal Son and Danae. These two works reference some of the earliest photographs of the crowds taken by Bill Henson back in the 1970s. They witness an unmistakeable influence of Italian cinematographers, especially Federico Fellini, for there is always someone who unsettlingly stares directly into the camera.

It is tempting to think that in the aftermath of that most ridiculous debacle of 2008, Bill Henson is now taking more care to contextualise his works and educate the viewing public about his images. By including photographs of people in a gallery in front of classical Old Master nudes, he creates a semantic context within which his own nudes ought to be viewed, examined, and considered – as iconographic descendants and inheritors of a rich and diverse artistic tradition of the female nude, one of the most pivotal elements of Western European art. Furthermore, these photographs parallel our own experience of viewing Bill Henson’s contribution to – and interpretation of – the genre.

Rembrandt references also point towards main influences on Henson’s photography – Old Masters paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Henson’s nudes are overlayed with bluish and purplish tinges, which make contemporary models barely distinguishable from their seventeenth-century ancestresses. The skin tones are desaturated; the marbling of the veins and capillaries is emphasised; the positioning of bodies is structured and sculpturally formalised.

The exhibition deserves to be seen in the flesh, so to speak, as no amount of digital online imagery or printed reproductions can relate the physical sensation and quality of these works. It is only in their presence that one can truly appreciate the depths of the enveloping darkness, into which Henson’s figures dissolve; marvel at the artist’s ability to pick out flashes of the model’s bright auburn hair; and fully experience the emotional weight of his compositions.

www.tolarnogalleries.com

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Tom Alberts @ Charles Nodrum Gallery

 

Tuesday, 19 April 2011 

Tom Alberts @ Charles Nodrum Gallery 

Charles Nodrum Gallery recently unveiled a new exhibition of paintings by Tom Alberts. It consists of seven large canvasses and eleven smaller studies. Those who had been following Tom’s progress over the last decade would agree that the exhibition is a return to form for the artist in terms of thematic coherency of ideas, genres, and subject matters. While his painting technique, execution, and attention to detail has always been beyond reproach, curatorial direction of his exhibitions sometimes did wander from theme to theme, or from one aesthetic direction to another.

This exhibition, however, presents a remarkable consistency of forms and ideas. The influence of the Old Masters is still present in these works. While there is a definite nod to Italy in such paintings as Bridge, Leaves, and Sala della Quattro Porte, Alberts is relying less and less on iconographical precedents of other artists (in fact, I could detect only a few direct quotation: Ingres’ La Source and perhaps the rear of Michelangelo’s David). Instead, Tom concentrates increasingly on creating his own iconic visions, which no doubt in time would influence other artists. This is to be applauded and encouraged within the oeuvre of this talented painter.

His wife and muse, Lisa Barmby, is still present within a number of compositions. She appears as a shadowy temptress with a poisoned apple in Study for Trip, as an incarnation of a cartoon devil in Study for The Edge, and her silhouette is ubiquitous in a number of other paintings.

But what is the exhibition actually about? The essay, jointly written by Charles Nodrum and Tom Alberts, sheds little light on semantics of the paintings, and is perhaps as mysterious and allegory-laden as many of the works in the exhibition.

Many of the paintings feature most incongruous events and visions – a hallmark of Tom’s oeuvre and evidence of his thriving and restless imagination – whether it is an over-life-size Gold Boy in the eponymous painting; a golden nude in Gold Pass; or a modern-day Daphne in Study for Leaves. However, one of the most curious aspects of all these works is that people, who are present at all these events, prefer to witness, experience, and remember not through their own eyes but through the lenses of their ever-present digital cameras, however imperfect and altered resulting images would be.

To me, therefore, these paintings are about Tom’s hope that the passion for looking, for knowledge, for studying, and experiencing works of art in particular (and life in general) first hand rather than through digital and printed medium will endure and survive; and this is expressed in a figure of a girl who is about to enter a museum in Bridge, or a lonesome artist who is capturing on a sheet of paper a vision of a floating cherubim in Sala della Quattro Porte.

www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au

 [© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Australian and International Fine Art @ Menzies

Monday, 14 March 2011

Australian and International Fine Art @ Menzies

For their first auction of the 2011 season, which takes place in Sydney on March 24, Menzies pulled together a tight (only 100 lots) but strong group of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and photography. Although the collection lacks significant 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th Century works (the market for which is dominated by Sotheby’s at the upper end and Leonard Joel at the lower end), the only notable exception is perhaps the lyrical Art Nouveau female nude by Arthur Loureiro (est $8-12,000), a rare and therefore institutionally significant work.

It is undoubtedly within the Modern masters that Menzies has its strengths, and the March offering is replete with representative selection of works by Arthur Boyd, John Brack, Russel Drysdale, Sydney Nolan, Jeffrey Smart, Albert Tucker, Brett Whiteley, and Fred Williams. As the catalogue meticulously indicates, a number of works by the above-mentioned artists have been around the block a few times, having frequently appeared on the art market within the last decade. However, the auction contains a number of outstanding items which are fresh to the market, and which according to the auction staff, have been extremely popular at the Melbourne preview: the market can smell fresh meat!

These include an outstanding beach nude by Brett Whiteley from 1985, Washing Out the Salt (est $1,250,000-1,750,000); a strong work by Albert Tucker, Gamblers and Parrots from 1968 (est $180-240,000), featuring his iconic Etruscan-inspired heads and abounding with colourful darting parrots; and a very extensive collection of sculptures by Robert Klippel, from early, small, delicately whimsical construction pieces (est $30-36,000), to later large-scale edition bronzes ($110-160,000). I also must mention another two pieces by Brett Whiteley, both relatively ‘fresh’ to the market that (if nothing else) are likewise worthy of a closer look: his brightly coloured Feeding the Doves from 1979, constructed along the dominant contrasts of purples and oranges (est $450-550,000); and a slightly earlier Bondi, which is remarkable for the shapes of houses deliciously blocked out in thick, square slabs of rich impastos ($85-100,000).

There is plenty for more contemporary-focused art collectors to feast their eyes on, including at least two significant works by Garry Shead, both of which haven’t seen the market since they were purchased from their respective galleries: Revelation (Royal Suite), from 1997, remarkable for its sheer size and compositional simplicity (est $250-320,000); and Artist and Muse (Velazquez), 2000, an exceptional and dreamlike composition from an important series of artist’s works (est $80-120,000). There are also strong representative pieces by Jon Cattapan, Aida Tomescu, and Ken Whisson.

Those with a taste for younger artists might equally be drawn to paintings and photographs by Julia Ciccarone, Alexander McKenzie, Tim McMonagle, Darren Sylvester, and David Wadelton. None of them are offered at bargain basement prices, but the works are still offered below their retail value. Exceptional among them are perhaps Tim McMonagle’s Princess Park (est $8-12,000) and David Wadelton’s Move on Up (est $10-15,000), very strong pieces by worthy contemporary artists.

As always, should I have been blessed with an unlimited bank account, my three picks for the auction would be the above-mentioned Brett Whiteley beach nude; a very important early Arthur Boyd’s Death of a Husband, painted in 1958 and belonging to an important group of paintings with comparable examples in public collections (est $650-850,000); and a sharp, engaging, and brightly coloured with yellows, purples, and accents of reds, yet minimalist in its aesthetics Lysterfield Hillside II by Fred Williams from 1974, a representative work from the artist’s important period (est $400-500,000). The last two works have been bandied about the auction rooms all too frequently, so there’s a hope that with this auction these worthy paintings would acquire a ‘more’ permanent home.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Freehand @ Heide MoMA

Sunday, 6 March 2011

Freehand @ Heide MoMA

The exhibition Freehand at Heidi focuses on contemporary Australian works on paper. The visitor to the exhibition is greeted by the giant Tooth and Claw by ex de Medici. Her watercolours are always remarkable for the high quality of execution and superb draughtsmanship, and this large-scale work on paper is no exception. It depicts two skeletons, one of which is supporting on its shoulder a giant gun, while the other is being crushed by the weight of the second gun. The weapons are surrounded by darting swallows and garlands of carnations. Soviet-style five-pointed stars are interspersed throughout the intricate background design of the watercolour, and they also appear etched on the barrel of one of the guns, alongside the Stars of David. One would have wished to learn more about the intricate and complex narrative of this superb watercolour, but the information provided in the catalogue is rather meagre. While the multi-layered semantics of guns and skeletons are almost self-explanatory, as are carnations, which are symbolic of fallen soldiers, I am rather intrigued by the Jewish and Soviet references, which will remain a mystery for the time being (unless the artist, or someone who is well-versed in her iconography would care to contact me).

As one steps back to admire the large de Medici, one literally stumbles across a long trestle table supporting a work by Greg Creek. It is very similar to what the artist has been producing over the last ten years, and comparable examples had been shown in numerous locations, including Creek’s one-man-show at the ACCA. It represents a collection of seemingly unrelated images, executed by the artist over a period of time, and, knowing Greg Creek, it is quite possible that some of the figures and squiggles may have been ‘contributed’ by chance visitors to his studio. The work includes a beautiful glimpse of the Merri Creek Bridge; a highly competent from architectural and perspective points of view vista of Melbourne; and a silhouette from Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer skilfully disguised as a pink blob at the bottom of the page. Greg Creek’s skills and abilities are self-evident in this picture, but after roughly a decade of seeing “clever” works in unfinished state, one almost wishes to rest the eye on a completed piece.

Three works by Mira Gojak create a very strong statement. I must confess that the first time I saw her non-objective abstract pieces at the Murray White Rooms, I did dismiss them as being somewhat on the decorative side. But the more I see them (and one can’t miss a huge Gojak reproduced on a billboard on the corner of Chapel St and Alexandra Ave), the more I am growing appreciative of Gojak’s varied pigment applications; bold balancing of positive and negative spaces within the composition; and pulsating and rhythmical movements of her spiralling and undulating curves.

Another artist who leaves an unforgettable impression is Sandra Selig, whose works I saw for the first time a few years ago at an exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In essence, her pieces consist of spider webs, tinted with spay paint and adhesed to a black background. No doubt quite intricate and labour intensive to produce, they create delicate and evocative designs. While the concept is quite ingenious, given the context of this exhibition, these works did make me ponder, that they owe more to the wonder of nature than to the artist’s hand.

One of the artists who manages to produce works of consistent quality is Del Kathryn Barton, who is profiled quite extensively in this exhibition with a large number of works on display. Her drawings are superbly imaginative and disturbingly visceral, a visual chronicle of the artist’s innermost feelings and fears, and while a number of works continue the artist’s mediation on the female body, there are also cryptic references to the masculine fear of castration.

And of course, one cannot go past the quirky madness that is Gosia Wlodarczak’s work. Depending on the direction of your exhibition perambulations, it is either the first or – as in my case – the last work to be seen in the show. Even though the surface of the work is assiduously covered with calligraphic scribbles, and figurative elements disappear under the ever-increasing layers of over-drawing, it retains the ghostly apparition of a car, which it originally covered, and on which the drawing was executed as a staged performance piece over a three-day period. It is interesting that Wlodarczak’s large-scale drawing is exhibited across the archway from the watercolour by ex de Medici, so the two works can be seen simultaneously from a single viewpoint. While Wlodarczak and de Medici’s works could not have been less alike, they converge at the pure joy elicited by both artists at the very act of drawing and picture making, and covering with markings almost every inch of the available surface.

In spite of the presence of a number of figurative artists mentioned above (including a selection of works by such ‘elder statesmen’ of Australian art as Peter Booth and Ken Whisson), the exhibition seems to be weighted more heavily towards abstraction as represented in works by Mario Fusinato, Dom de Clario, Robert McPherson, Eugene Carchesio, Aida Tomescu, and numerous others. Apart from a couple of artists, Freehand seems to overlook contemporary practitioners of traditional figuration, the likes of which one would have encountered, say, in the A.M.E. Bale Scholarship exhibition or on the walls of the Australian Galleries. However, I do accept that this is a strictly curatorial choice, which perhaps eschewed a well-rounded and all-inclusive survey of contemporary drawing in favour of representing recent developments and trends in present-day Australian art. In this the exhibition has fully succeeded by bringing together a representative selection of artists who draw in a variety of media, styles, and genres, and demonstrate in their works a thought-provoking plurality of artistic (self-)expression.

[PS: The photography within the gallery – even without flash – is strictly forbidden. I am relying on images of artists’ comparable works found elsewhere on the net.]

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Bernard Hall’s “The Suicide”

Saturday, 5 March 2011

Bernard Hall’s “The Suicide”

Among the most remarkable pictures in the Ewing Collection is The Suicide, painted by Lindsay Bernard Hall (1859-1935), a British-born Australian painter, around c. 1916-18. The artist is well known for his depiction of female nudes, yet few other paintings can match the high degree of drama and human emotion as captured in this work.

The museum’s website does not provide us with clues as to what may have driven this woman to the greatest depths of anguish and despair. However, if we were to examine the painting through the eyes of a late nineteenth / early twentieth century viewer, we may uncover the sad narrative behind this work.

A well-cared-for body; fashionably coiffed hair; opulent fabrics; fur skin rug; elegant shoes; imposing architecture of the apartment; a bowl of fresh cut flowers: all of these details might be construed as a tale of a courtesan, a fallen woman, who is driven to suicide by the break-up of a latest love affair; perhaps the one with a rich lover who kept her in a lavish lifestyle; and where a drastic measure of taking one’s own life is the only escape from a life in penury. As such, the story takes on puritanical, moralising overtones of redemption, though certainly with further research other clues to the painting’s origins or semantics might be uncovered.

And as we stop in front of the painting to ponder about the woman’s sad tale, just like a hundred years ago we subconsciously come to absorb and admire the many wonderful technical and artistic details within this work – which perhaps may have been Hall’s intention in the first place! The boldest foreshortening of the woman’s body shows him as a skilful artist, knowledgeable about the drawing of the human figure. The limited colour palette of the interior’s background concentrates our attention on the bright yellow of the dressing gown, luscious green of the drapery, deep red of the cushion, and, of course, the warm fleshy pinks of the nude female form, richly bathed in sunlight that floods the picture from a window opening in the upper right of the painting.

In other words, the intriguing narrative of the picture draws our attention to the excellence of the artist’s workmanship, and vice versa – Hall combines his academic skills with drawing, colour, composition, and brushwork, and vivid imagination to draw the viewer’s attention to what must have been – and still is – a highly contentious, unsettling, and confronting subject matter; creating one of those iconic images that is bound to stay in the mind of the viewer.

PS: The painting’s former owner, Dr Samuel Ewing, must have been so uncomfortable with the fact that this remarkable painting depicts suicide, that he changed its name to Despair, under which title this painting is still frequently exhibited.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Unnerved: The New Zealand Project

Monday, 10 January 2011

Unnerved: The New Zealand Project

Unnerved: The New Zealand Project is the second region-specific exhibition from the Queensland Art Gallery, currently on view at the National Gallery of Victoria. It focuses on New Zealand’s contemporary art, and includes paintings, drawings, watercolours, sculpture, photography, installation, video and performance works by such New Zealand artists as Michael Parekowai, Mark Adams, Gavin Hipkins, Lisa Reihana, Duncan Cole, Greg Semu, Yvonne Todd, John Pule, Shane Cotton, Lorene Taurerewa, and numerous others.

The exploration of New Zealand’s contemporary culture and post-colonial identity is the common thread that unites the works of disparate genres and diverse media in the show. The majority of artists in this exhibition are of Maori, Samoan and other Pacific Islanders’ descent, which informs many of the works. Their “bi-cultural” concerns as well as the underlying psychological darkness can (perhaps) only be related in this country to the works of some of our urban indigenous artists.

New Zealand’s natural, breathtaking beauty provides a wonderful source of inspiration to such landscape photographers as Mark Adams (1949-), who poetically captures in Indian Island 360* Panorama (1998/2006) an important site of historic significance. The country’s people, places, and playgrounds allowed Gavin Hipkins (1968-) to explore the country’s composite cultural identity – from high to low and everything in-between – in a complex photographic installation The Homely (1997-2000) that spans the length of three walls.

Michael Parekowhai’s (1968-) giant rabbit greets the visitors as they enter the National Gallery; it’s Disney-like cuteness belies the artist’s concern about the impact of rabbits, introduced species, on New Zealand’s environment. In a similar vein is his Acts II, which disguises tools of colonisation as a DYI die-cast plastic toy set. His black seal balancing a giant piano on the tip of its nose in The Horn of Africa echo the topographical outlines of New Zealand and reference the reputation of the North Island as a business and cultural hub, and of the South Island as a tourist attraction.

Duncan Cole (1968-) and Shigeyuki Kihara (1975-) reprise in their works popular 19^th-Century photographs of New Zealand’s “ethnographic specimens”, replacing them with a cast of contemporary characters, which are representative of the “new tribes” within the present-day street culture. Greg Semu’s (1971-) self-portraits explore traditional Maori body tattoos, pe’a, in the context of the contemporary male nude photography.

Western European culture and traditional iconographies of Maori, Samoa, and other Pacific Island groups continue to collide in paintings by John Pule (1962-) and Shane Cotton (1964-); while the most exquisite ink drawings of Lorene Taurerewa (1961-), Psychopompe, pick up the dark psychological undertones which are prevalent throughout the exhibition, including Yvonne Todd’s (1973-) exquisite portrait photographs that ruminate about  the universality of America-centric dreams of ideal beauty and white weddings, or Anne Noble’s (1954-) “mutilations” of her daughter’s tongue.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]