A Day At The Races

Ivan Durrant has certainly attracted his fair share of controversy over the years but he is a wonderful painter of characters.  Back in the days when I had REALLY nothing better to do, I would occasionally go to the races ( if I could get access to a members guest ticket) and these were the characters I would see in the crowd.  The disdain of the rich was evident everywhere I looked.

This painting was included in an exhibition called "A Day At The Caulfield Races" staged at the Caulfield Arts Complex in 1994.

Gregory Crewdson

While there is plenty to admire in the beauty of Gregory Crewdson's photography, it is the deep underlying psychology of his work that impresses me.  Crewdson has said that he wants his work to be both beautiful and have an underlying anxiety, loneliness perhaps even fear.  It is interesting to hear him speak of his work and to note the absence of the usual conceptual gobbledegook you hear from so many artists these days.  Perhaps it's because he knows his work stands on its own merits. 

Farewell to Jeffrey Smart

There is a school of thought that argues this painting produced by Jeffrey Smart in 1972 is an 'up yours' to the abstract expressionists and I'm not about to argue.  He appears to be saying, "hey, I can paint abstract too but look, I can also paint people, landscape. corrugated iron etc."

Painted Factory, Tuscany                              Jeffrey Smart

To understand Jeffrey Smart it sometimes helps to remember that he was almost as much a showman as a painter.  He knew how to play to an audience.  It also helps to appreciate that his paintings work on several levels - there is certainly a darkness in many of his paintings such as those brooding skies, but there is humour as well.  Not to mention wonderful draftsmanship and the steadiest hand imaginable.  We will miss him.

Bealiba Range

Living for several years in north-central Victoria gave me the opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with the rugged local terrain.  The long, hot summers and cold winters seem such a contrast to Melbourne, just two hours drive away.

Bealiba Range 2                     Oil On Canvas
2013

Bealiba Range is a low range of stony hills a few kilometres north of Dunolly in the goldfields region of Victoria.  The intention with this work is not to romanticize, beautify or even soften the landscape but to present it as the thing in itself - a harsh, dry. stony landscape where people eke out a marginal living as best they can.

Talking about one's own work

In 1962, when he was 64, the great Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte produced the painting The Domain Of Arnheim.  The title derives from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe which conjures up an  imaginary landscape.  Magritte apparently absorbed many of Poe's stories so it is argued by the author A. M. Hammacher that this left a residue in Magritte's mind.   But....

The Domain of Arnheim          Rene Magritte

There is another way to read this work which has little to do with Poe.  Magritte was the eldest of 3 boys and when he reached to age of 12, their mother (who suffered severe depression) went missing.  Nearly 2 weeks later, her body was found in a river some distance down stream from their house with her nightdress wrapped around her head.  So does this painting present us with the unreachable mother, having abandoned the nest?  
Magritte always denied this was the case.  He rarely talked about what happened to his mother, even to his wife Georgette.  All he would say was, "I thought about the painting, I planned it and did it and that is all there is to it".  Consciously, he may be telling the truth.  
No doubt he would have read the poem and decided to conjure up an imaginary landscape of his own.  A mountain in the shape of a bird would be entirely consistent with his oeuvre.  The ledge in the foreground was there to give the painting depth.  He must have decided to place something on the ledge as a counterpoint to the bird image.  A nest with eggs in it would seem to be the most appropriate.  So while his conscious self is making the these technical decisions, his unconscious self may be turning the clock back 50 years.   And this is why it can be difficult for artists to talk about their work.  They see one thing, their audience (especially those who know them) see something entirely different.

Motivations

Some years ago a friend asked me, "What is it with you and psychiatric hospitals?"  He was referring to the presence of abandoned psych hospitals in my paintings at the time.  What surprised me with this question was that he, like me, had studied at art school.  He obviously didn't understand the concept of metaphor, that is; my paintings may have been of psych hospitals, but they were not necessarily about them.

Rainy Day At Aradale                    Oil on canvas on board
2007

It is possible I see the abandoned hospital as a symptom of governments withdrawing from their responsibilities towards society, the end of the welfare state for instance.  Then again there may be a more fundamental, even personal reason for why these establishments resonate with me so powerfully.  Either way, it really doesn't matter.  The key issue is, to make these paintings succeed as works of art.     

Psychiatric Art - The Cunningham Dax Collection

The Long Ward     2000
76cm x 96cm
Oil on Canvas

Currently showing at La Trobe Regional Gallery at Morwell in Victoria's Gippsland region is "Hide And Seek", an exhibition of self-portraits from the Cunningham Dax Collection.  Dr Eric Cunningham Dax collected thousands of artworks during the 1950's to the 1980's produced by patients of psychiatric hospitals.  Since then, the collection has been added to with acquisitions from the private sector and from survivors from the Holocaust.
Art practice was encouraged in institutions as a form of rehabilitation, clinical assessment and therapy.  Some of the images are confronting and reveal the battle between the inner self and external appearance.  For a graphic illustration of life on the edge, this exhibition is not to be missed and provides a powerful counterpoint to the proliferation of so-called identity art which almost drove critic Robert Hughes to distraction.  Pictured opposite is one of a series of paintings I produced after visiting an abandoned psychiatric hospital in the late 1990's.  The exhibition continues until 19th May.

Homage to Henri Rousseau

I never had much regard for the paintings of Henri Rousseau (1844 - 1910) until I discovered he really didn't hit his straps as an artist until he became a retired civil servant.  For some reason, my estimation of his work sky-rocketed.  The art critic Robert Rosenblum refers to the free wheeling independence in Rousseau's work and the flattening of shapes and colours that place him in the realm of the post impressionists.  "Like the art of an inspired child, everything seems freshly invented, its imaginative leaps convincing". ROSENBLUM  
Apparently, Rousseau's work inspired Picasso when he was teetering on the brink of cubism.

Temple Of  The Winds                Oil on Canvas

When I visit the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, some of the more exotic plants remind me of Rousseau's inventiveness. 

A Real Job

How many artists do you know who have been asked the question; "What do you do for a real job?"  How many plumbers, architects, builders and teachers get asked that question?  For some reason, a career in the arts is often seen as an indulgence, perhaps even a form of escapism. For many years I had that attitude, which is why I was well into my 30's before taking my interest in art seriously.  

Jacopo Chimenti (1554-1640)

Some years ago, I watched an interview with the acclaimed English abstract artist Howard Hodgkin who played the role of the cool, suave artist until he was talking about a particular art teacher he encountered when he was 16.  Clifford Ellis had established the first residential school for artists in England and who, Hodgkin said, made him feel that wanting to be an artist was a worthwhile occupation.   But by the time Hodgkin managed to get the words out, he was almost crying - such was the impact Ellis had on him.  Watching this scene, I thought to myself "I know where you are coming from."