Howard Arkley - The Artist Who Didn't Airbrush Suburbia

An artist whose career was tragically cut short, Howard Arkley (1951-1999) first became aware of the airbrush in 1969 in his first year at art school.   He realised early on that he was not going to be a physical painter and the attraction of the airbrush was in being able to create an image without touching the surface.  “I was never going to love paint and wallow around in it.”  He said he wanted to make an image without getting his hands dirty.

According to Arkley’s biographer Ashley Crawford, Arkley absorbed the booming arts, punk rock and fashion scene of late 1970’s Melbourne in his art.  The airbrush gave Arkley the opportunity to make marks quickly without using much paint and with little “physical involvement”.   He agreed that what he was doing was going against the grain of painterly art that flourished in the 1980’s, in that he found the idea of mixing paint with turps and having the stuff “running down his arms” off putting.

Family Home 1993

So why the suburbs as his choice of subject matter?  “They are my life, that’s where I grew up, my childhood, my formative years and this is what formed me both in my personal life and artistic life”.

Arkley was awarded the Alliance Francaise Art Fellowship, an artist’s residency in Paris in 1977 but he also visited New York and his experiences taught him that there could be a unique Australian urban art.  He decided to use the suburbs as a cultural motif that had not been used before, and the wrought iron door with its flywire screen was the catalyst.  The infinite variety of styles fascinated him and it gave him an avenue to explore an Australian artform divorced from traditional landscape art.

The repeated patterns in these doors formed the basis of later art including some abstract works, but more importantly in the depictions of the house itself where these patterns appear almost in abstract form, both in interiors and exteriors – he drew no distinction between the two.  He saw patterns in houses, even those that contain no art at all and he didn’t want his art to be perceived as satirical.

Deluxe Setting 1992

When he spoke of inspirations for his work, Arkley reminds me a little of Andy Warhol.  He often spent time in supermarkets buying products for no other reason than the design on the packaging, the dynamic use of colour and form.  He also was influenced by art in the age of mechanical reproduction and he insisted that he wanted his paintings to look like reproductions, not the original, as though they had appeared in a book.  Speaking of which, he also drew inspiration for his interiors from magazines such as House and Garden and from real estate advertisements.

He didn’t intellectualize about his art.  He was a great gatherer of imagery and if he saw something that appealed to him, he would include it in his art.

Arkley had a love/hate relationship with suburbia “this suburban thing is in danger of swallowing me up, it’s a problem, and perhaps I should head for the You Yangs and get some relief.”  It’s this love/hate relationship that kept fueling the fire “you can’t grab it and come to terms with it.”

Freeway 1999

He was chosen as Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and it was thought that the significance of his art was in breaking the mould of European perceptions of Australian art, and it was a great success.  I saw the exhibition “Howard Arkley and Friends” at Tarrawarra Museum of Art a few years ago and it was a revelation with his bold use of colour and stensils that seemed to bridge the gap between abstraction and figuration.

Portrait of Nick Cave, a 1998 commission from the National Portrait Gallery

In his 1999 ABC interview, Arkley came across as a hard working, unpretentious person with a few surprises.  “You go where your art takes you – it sounds romantic but I’m a romantic person.”  But he also had his demons.  His chaotic lifestyle was a concern to many of his friends and his addiction to heroin was a source of shame - he did his best to hide it.  I can vaguely remember seeing an interview with him many years ago when he was clearly stoned and it was disturbing viewing.  Shortly after the Venice Biennale, he had a sellout show in Los Angeles and then returned to Melbourne with his new wife Alison Burton.  Just a few days later, he died of a heroin overdose aged 48.

Hello, my name is Geoff. You may be interested to know that I’m a fulltime artist these days and regularly exhibit my work in Victoria, but particularly in Melbourne. You may wish to check out my work using the following link; https://geoffharrisonarts.com

References;

Howard Arkley 1999 ABC TV

The Guardian

The Independent

The Sculpture of Jane Cavanough

In an interview she gave with Arts Health Network New South Wales, sculptor Jane Cavanough was asked “As an artist, how do you use art for your personal health and well-being?”  She gave a very telling response,  “Art is very low on the spectrum of cultural appreciation in Australia – very different for instance in Europe.  It is difficult to make your living being an artist and I sometimes think I should describe myself as a gambler rather than an artist, because now, with every project I apply for, the client mostly asks for a concept, which not only takes ages to think about, but also requires 3d illustration, for which I pay someone….and this is expensive – I’m not sure how many professions require the answer to the question before contracting them – and this really gets me down.

I knew that if I stayed being a landscape architect I would end up depressed and unsatisfied. The fact remains, I love what I do, and it never feels like work.”

Like many people, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with public sculpture and I’m not sure if the blame should be leveled at the artists or those who commissioned these works, or both.  The “cheese stick” looming menacingly over Melbourne’s City Link comes to mind.  Many sculptors seem to be motivated by a desire to confront or challenge the public and they forget that many of us are confronted EVERY DAY with their creations.  But at its best, public sculpture can be memorable because it engages with the public.

Touchstones, Bankstown Arts Centre, Sydney, 2011.  These copper and glass pebbles refer to the lapidary workshops located in the arts complex.

This brings me to Jane Cavanough who is based in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.  Her interest in sculpture dates back to the early 1990’s when she was working as a landscape architect in Sydney.  After studying at the Sydney College of the Arts, she instigated a couple of environmentally based sculpture events in Centennial Park and has continued to make site specific landscape based sculpture.

Endemic, Bungarribee NSW, Designed by Jane Cavanough and indigenous artist Enda Watson, a family group of corten steel kangaroos gather on the common at Bungarribee, developed by Urban Growth NSW.  Apparently, the locals dress up these sculptures every Christmas which gives Cavanough “a real buzz.”

Through her business Artlandish Art and Design, Cavanough works either solely or in collaboration with design teams for local and state governments, developers, statutory bodies and architecture firms to develop projects from concept through to completion.  The works are fabricated by artisans adept at working with glass, LED lighting, forged, stainless and mild steel, copper, bronze, brass, cast concrete, stone, timber, mist and water.

Boer War Memorial, Anzac Parade Canberra designed by Jane Cavanough and Group GSA, winner of a national design competition in 2012.

The aim is to create artworks that have a strong relationship to the site in urban, architectural and landscape settings. The relationship between people, sculpture and landscape lies at the heart of  Cavanough’s artwork. Rather than producing art that is willfully alienating or inaccessible to the public, she seeks to engage the environmental and cultural aspects of each site in her work.  She has won a number of scholarships and awards throughout her career.

You can read more of my blogs or check out my own art on www.geoffharrisonarts.com.

References;

Arts Health Network NSW

www.janecavanough.com.au

Bill Henson - Art & Politics

“Meaning comes from feeling”, is a favourite quote from Bill Henson. To describe Henson as a photographer seems to understate the significance of his work and the motivations behind it.  He lives in a world within a world, “a retreat of quiet contemplation and dark imaginings”. Although there are classical overtones in his work, his imagery is often dark, mildly disturbing and gritty.  Henson believes the best art can be life-affirming but perhaps also disconcerting and confronting and it’s this paradox that brings an edginess to his art.  He claims that the images that have had the most profound impact on him artistically are paintings, not photographs.

Henson’s photograph of conductor Simone Young from 2002

The portrayal of children at around the age of puberty in much of Henson’s work requires explanation.  It’s an age of transition where the person is neither child nor adult.  It’s a time, says Henson, for experimentation, for self-examination when things can go very well or very badly.  The late Edmund Capon thought that Henson’s portrayal of adolescents was about vulnerability, about being on the cusp of knowledge where one is aware of things but doesn’t know how to deal with them.

Untitled 2001, 127cm x 180cm

His career dates back to the 1970’s and has courted controversy within the art world from time to time.  That controversy spilled over into the broader community as a result of an exhibition Henson held at Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley Gallery in 2008 – an exhibition that attracted the ire of then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The exhibition featured images of naked adolescents (some aged only 13) that were seized by police and an argument raged over whether the exhibition was art or child pornography.  Kevin Rudd described the exhibition as revolting and stressed his belief that children need to have their innocence protected. 

Interestingly, then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who owned a Henson work, called for level heads to prevail.  He was concerned about police “tramping through art galleries and libraries” being an attack on freedom. But reports that Henson had been allowed to scout for models at a local school complicated the debate.  Two things need to be emphasized here; firstly he was ALLOWED to scout for models. Secondly, where else was he meant to find them?  Go doorknocking?  Roam around sports grounds?

Untitled 1994, 250cm x 244cm

I have no recollection of any journalist having the courage to ask Rudd if he actually saw the exhibition, nor did any of them remind Rudd that Henson had been Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale with similar work.

A few years after the Sydney show, I attended a talk at the Gippsland Art Gallery given by Henson during an exhibition of his work there.  Someone asked him to comment on the controversy and his response was quite enlightening.  As he was flying off to Sydney for the opening, a New South Wales state Labor politician was jailed on child sex charges.  Henson believes that Rudd was looking for a distraction and someone got into Rudd’s ear about the exhibition, which was just what the Prime Minister was looking for.

Untitled 2017

The police carried out interviews with the parents of the children depicted in Henson’s work and no one was prepared to lay charges.  So the story promptly died – at least as far as the 24 hour news cycle is concerned. 

Sensibly, Henson remained silent at the time whilst many in the art community passionately came to his defence.  The issue of freedom of artistic expression became central in the debate.

At the opening of the Melbourne Art Fair in 2010, Henson broke his silence over the controversy.He called for politicians to make art available for everyone in the community, not to stop people from seeing it.“We need a politics that makes the world safe for art.Art itself can never be entirely safe as it is a form of truth and truth is a wild thing for us to tame.”

Untitled 2008, 127 x 180 cm

“We see a new growth in censoriousness and an impulse to restrict the conditions under which art is produced - an absurd attempt to conflate artistic freedom and child welfare as an issue.  The idea that the two can be mutually exclusive is absurd.  Everything we know about the world comes to us through our bodies, the idea of banning the human body at whatever age as a subject for art is ridiculous when you look at it in a historical context.”  One only has to think of the paintings of Balthus decades earlier.

Balthus, Therese Dreaming, 1938

Henson has remained in contact with many of the children (now adults) depicted in his work and their parents, and they have expressed pride in their involvement.

Henson wants politicians to be more statesmanlike and lead, rather than pander to fear (real or imagined) about the portrayal of the human body in art.  Well, given the current crop of political “leaders” in this country, I would suggest that Henson shouldn’t hold his breath.

References;

ABC TV – 7:30

ABC TV - Lateline

The Art of Bill Henson, Obsessions documentary

Emma Minnie Boyd

As author Brenda Niall tells the story in her 2002 book “The Boyds”, Australia’s most famous artistic dynasty began with four men; Victoria’s first Chief Justice, a convict turned successful brewer, a military officer and a doctor/squatter. Initially, reading this book brought back memories of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in that the reader is confronted with an enormous family tree that runs to three pages.

The scale of that tree can be attributed to the simple fact that most of them bred like rabbits.  What is remarkable is the proliferation of artistic offspring produced by these various alliances; painters, potters, sculptors, writers and architects.

For this blog, I am focusing on the career of Emma Minnie Boyd (1858-1936) arguably the first significant artist of the dynasty.

Minnie Boyd; Interior With Figures - The Grange, 1875, watercolour

With the a’Beckett fortune behind her (William a’Beckett was Victoria’s first Chief Justice), Emma Minnie lived a privileged existence both in Victoria and the UK.  She spent six years at the Gallery School in Melbourne, as well as private lessons with none other than Louis Buvelot – the finest landscape painter of his generation.  Her early interior scenes are my favourites, they depict scenes at the Boyd’s Tudor style mansion “Glenfern” in East St Kilda (which still exists) and “The Grange” at Harkaway (which doesn’t).  They are small in scale but very intricate.

Minnie Boyd; Corner Of A Drawing Room, 1887, oil on canvas

Minnie and Arthur Merric Boyd, were contemporaries of the Heidelberg school artists; Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder etc. but being married, they remained on the fringes of that movement.  Life in the male dominated artists’ camps of the late 1880’s was not a proposition for a lady and besides, the others were all single.  She was fortunate to have a painter-husband who encouraged her in her career.

The Boyds moved to the UK in 1890 and their work was shown at the Royal Academy.  They lived in relative comfort, but the poverty of rural England began to disturb Minnie.  The industrial revolution had effectively destroyed cottage industries and Minnie was encouraged by a local vicar to take part in village life and charitable work.  Her painting “To The Workhouse” is a reflection of these times.  But they also toured Europe, largely on the proceeds of Emma a’Beckett – Minnie’s mother.  They moved back to Victoria in 1894.

Minnie Boyd; To The Workhouse, 1891, oil on canvas

Niall writes that their experiences in Europe didn’t change the Boyd’s greatly as artists, although being exposed to rural poverty awoke a social conscience in Minnie and she became deeply religious.  Back in Melbourne, Minnie and Arthur Merric attempted to live a more independent existence but were still heavily reliant on Emma’s “bounty”.

In 1902, the Boyd’s held a joint exhibition in the ballroom of Como House which was regarded as an enviable coup.  The exhibition, which was organised by wealthy patron Caroline Armytage was considered a commercial success.

Arthur Merric Boyd; Pastoral, 1899, watercolour

Yet it appears that their status as artists was hard to define.  Their perceived privileged background was an uneasy fit with the (romanticised) bohemian image of the serious artist.  And these artists may have envied their connections.  Yet among the wealthy upper class of Melbourne they were both insiders and outsiders.  There appeared to be a slight vein of eccentricity that ran through the Boyd Dynasty and certainly Minnie and Arthur Merric felt awkward about using friendships for money.  Yet the more they needed to sell their work the harder it became.  Eventually, Minnie began teaching.

Minnie Boyd; Harkaway, 1879, watercolour

Looking at Minnie’s early work, I’m left wondering why she didn’t become a more prominent artist, as she had been exhibiting her work from the age of fifteen.  Being a woman in a male dominated profession only provides part of the answer.  Once again, the family tree provides the other – she had five children and was a devoted mother.  Still, she was one of those rare artists who was able to combine an artistic career with raising a large family.  She was equally adept at watercolours and oils and was quite versatile in her output.

Just like her mother before her, Minnie became the centre of Boyd family life.  She gave religious sermons to her children, although it was not of the ‘fire and brimstone’ kind.  One of her sons (Martin) believes that the literal earnestness with which Minnie accepted her religion was the result of her need for some unalterable centre of stability.

After being frail for some years, Minnie died in 1936 at the age of 78.  She had been exhibiting landscapes at the Victorian Artist’s Society until seven years earlier.

References;

The Boyds, Brenda Niall, Melbourne University Press, 2002

Wikipedia

50 Years At Latrobe Regional Gallery

Latrobe Regional Gallery in Morwell is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an exhibition featuring 50 prominent Gippsland artists.  It’s an eclectic exhibition in which almost all the visual arts are represented.  Works in the exhibition are drawn from three sources; the gallery’s collection, the artists themselves and artist commissions.

The catalogue tells us that three themes have informed this exhibition;

land, and in particular the lived experience,

fortitude – a reference to the economic turmoil following the privatisation of the power industry in the Latrobe Valley and, more recently, the move away from coal fired electricity generation.  And the ongoing impact of the 2014 fire at the nearby open cut mine that blanketed Morwell in acrid smoke for 45 days.

connection – a reference to everything we do in a community.

Some of the artists selected for the exhibition have taught art at the nearby Federation University Churchill campus and others have lived and worked in the Latrobe Valley for many years.  A former gallery director is also included. 

Reference in the catalogue is also made to the travelling exhibition “Contemporary Gippsland” featuring a number of local artists that was developed by LRG in 1990.  The catalogue for that exhibition states that “regionalism does not mean a decline in artistic standards, irrelevance to contemporary artistic theory and practice, or that individualism is lost to some perceived notion of regional style or subject matter”.  The aim of that exhibition was to spread that message far and wide and this current show is aimed at reinforcing that message.

Featured below are some of my favourite works from the exhibition.

Bill Young, Spirit Of Morwell, 1990, acrylic on MDF, 183 cm x 240 cm

Bill Young’s work perhaps captures the conundrum that is the Latrobe Valley – a questioning of its identity.  This area of Victoria is unique in having a number of large rural towns in close proximity to each other.  So is the Latrobe Valley residential, industrial or rural/agricultural?  Or a bit of each?

Neale Stratford, Being Comforted By Death, 2013, digital pigment print on aluminium, 112 x 75 cm

Neale Stratford’s art draws on his experiences with Asperger’s Syndrome.  In creating his art, Stratford references the dark compositional styles and themes of artists such as Goya and Caravaggio.  I have visited a solo show staged by Stratford at LRG and it was a powerful and confronting experience.

Geoff Dupree, Waterloo Road, 1985, watercolour on paper, 77 x 221 cm

Apologies for the poor image quality, I had to scan the catalogue as I couldn’t find this painting online.  The location is Trafalgar, but it could be any town in the Latrobe Valley at night.  It’s a desolate and unsettling scene that is so typical of a depressed area at night.

Mandy Gunn, W(RAPT) 2012/13, recycled paper, shopping bags & wrappings on cardboard

Mandy Gunn does amazing things with cardboard and paper, and has for many years.  De-constructing, abstracting and collaging with a reference to textile techniques such as weaving.  I found myself drawn into the work through the swirling and undulating patterns, but there is an environmental concern in this work in that it references the issue of recycling.

Rodney Forbes, Submarine With Goat & Giantess, 2010, oil & acrylic on canvas, 92 x 259 cm

I think Rodney Forbes is at his best when depicting humour in his art.  You are drawn into the work by the clarity of colour and the complexity of the composition.  There is an almost cartoonish element to his work yet there is also a strong narrative element and Forbes often explores more serious themes.

Juli Haas, By The Banks Of Her Own Lagoon, 1995, watercolour on paper, 100 x 151 cm

Juli Haas, who died in 2014, won the Sir John Sulman Prize with this work in 1995.  Although the scene is cluttered with figures, there seems to be no interaction between them. There are sinister overtones to the work and yet this is relieved to some extent by the use of vivid, contrasting colours and an element of puppetry and theatre in the scene.

There have been times when I wonder if the locals appreciate what an important asset they have in the Latrobe Regional Gallery, given the poor attendances I have witnessed at some exhibition openings.  But long may the gallery survive and prosper.

“50 Years, 50 Artists” at Latrobe Regional Gallery runs until 12th December.  And while you are in Gippsland, I suggest you visit the Archibald Prize at the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale and the “Our Entries” exhibition at Rosedale (weekends only).

Reference;

“50 Years 50 Artists”, Latrobe Regional Gallery catalogue

Mandy Martin - Artist & Environmental Activist

Australian artist Mandy Martin died in July at the age of 68 after a long battle with cancer.  Described as a highly influential artist, educator and a passionate environmentalist, her art often explored the fraught relationship between humans and the environment.  She graduated from the South Australian School of Art in 1975, where she also taught.  Martin produced such a rich and varied oeuvre that I can only skin over the surface here.

From early on in her career she produced politically engaged work such as a screenprint referencing the Vietnam War which appeared in the New York feminist magazine Heresies in 1977.

Screen print for Heresies Magazine, 1977

For many years her work focussed on the impact of mining on the landscape of New South Wales and for 20 years she kept returning to the Cadia open cut mine to commence a new body of work.  A project would commence with a trip with her sketchbook placed on an ironing board, using pigments she found in the area as well as inks.

“My work has always been about the interplay between the natural environment and the industrial, you can’t talk about the degradation of the environment without talking about what you want to preserve in that environment”.  Some of her work presents a simple vision of the natural world contrasting with the impact of the industrial.  “It’s a juxtaposition between the two.”

Mandy Martin with her work Four Riders from 2016

Martin’s father was a professor of botany at the University of Adelaide and her mother an artist and she would often go on field trips with them, with her father collecting specimens whilst her mother painted.  Thus she thought it natural to see the interrelationships between science and art.  Her work has been credited with bringing an intellectual perspective to the issues of environmental degradation – not to scare people but to make them think.

She rarely used tube paints, instead preparing her own pigments which were often supplied by farmers, archaeologists and friends.  “I do some loose impasto work to begin with, then I lie it down and stain it and flood on more pigment and that kind of half destroys the work.  It sounds weird but lots of wonderful things happen, it runs and blurs and once it dries I work back into those ‘mistakes’ as it were.”  Martin didn’t like the ‘hand of the artist’ being evident in her work or the mannered brush mark.  Instead, she wanted blocks of colour and scrape marks.

Homeground 3, Ochre, pigment & oil on linen 2004, 1.5 m x 3 m

She felt that she was still painting the same picture, that her techniques and subject matter hadn’t really changed since the 1980’s.  “I’ve always been interested in texture and surface and because I do a lot of landscape based work, it’s natural to want to incorporate the materiality of the land.”

The aboriginal scar trees dotted across the central west of NSW (including on her property near Mandurama) were an influence on her work, and she worked collaboratively with a native elder Trisha Carroll in works such as Haunted.  Martin found that Trisha brought a spiritual dimension to her work which she found fascinating.

Haunted 1, ochre, pigment, oil on linen 2004, 1.5 m x 5 m

She had also been keen to push the boundaries of her work, which included a collaborative multimedia effort with her son Alexander Boynes  titled ‘Homeground’, a combination of her painting and his digital work.  I saw one of their collaborations at Latrobe Regional Gallery in 2019 – it was quite an eye-opener.

In relation to the huge scarring of the landscape caused by open cut mining, Martin says “They talk about offsets but how do you offset something like that?  You can’t, once it’s gone it’s gone”

“I used to do a lot of detailed drawing, but I’m getting much older and arthritic so I’m being a lot broader and looser now.  I love painting because I’m totally seduced by the materials and textures and working on a good piece of linen with my favourite ochres and pigments makes me pretty happy.”  Following her death, the Canberra Times described Martin as deeply ethical and beautifully human. “Her art engaged society, spoke of its challenges and addressed the existential threats that it faced.”

Red Ochre Cove, oil, 1987, 3 m x 12 m installed in the committee room, Parliament House Canberra

Martin held numerous exhibitions in Australia and overseas and her work can be found in many collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

An article posted by Australian Galleries tells us that in the final weeks of Mandy’s life, she requested that donations could be made to assist an annual artist grant, which her family would like to name in her honour. The details of this artist grant which will support creative responses to the climate crisis are currently being finalised.  Donations can be made through the independent non-profit organisation CLIMARTE.

References;

Awarewomenartists.com

“The Beauty and the Terror” – Tom Griffiths (Inside Story)

Mandy Martin: Homeground Mini Doco – Bathurst Regional Art Gallery

Canberra Times

The Price Of Success; Jason Benjamin

Perhaps I should start this blog with a confession.  I have never seen Jason Benjamin’s work in the flesh, so to speak.  And now he is gone.  His body was found in the Murrumbidgee River by police on the 16th February after he had been reported missing.  He was 50.  According to his Sydney dealer Ralph Hobbs, Benjamin had his ups and downs but he seemed excited about an upcoming exhibition and decided to travel to outback New South Wales to produce some paintings and poems for it.

Although predominately a landscape painter, Benjamin was a regular finalist in the Archibald and in 2005 he won the Packing Room prize with his portrait of actor Bill Hunter, titled ‘Staring Down The Past’.  His other subjects included musicians Paul Kelly and Tim Rogers.

Staring Down The Past, oil on linen, 180 cm x 240 cm (Art Gallery NSW)

Born in Melbourne, Benjamin spent periods of his childhood in the US and Mexico and studied at the Pratt Institute in New York City from the age of 19, but found it stifling.  Afterwards, he juggled work and art studies before returning to Australia in the early 1990’s.  He has won a number of awards including the Mosman Prize (3 times) and the Kings School Art Prize for landscape painting in 1997.

I Can't Let Go, 2004, multi-plate coloured etching (Etching House)

Despite spending up to 70 hours a week painting in his studio, he was able to balance this with his marriage and the demands of 2 children.  He once said that “if you have a richer life – full of experience, communication, challenges – then you’ve got more to paint”.  He describes his landscapes as “romanticized versions of reality” and apparently has been called a photo-realist painter, which just goes to show how little some people know about art.  Although he did use photography as part of his source material.  He appears to have been a fine draftsman, but there is also a rich tonality and mood inducing colour in his work. 

There Is No Easy Ride (Western plains NSW), oil on linen, 120 x 180 cm (Tiffany Jones Fine Art)

For those of you who know the paintings of Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, you may not be surprised to learn that they were influences on Benjamin.

Hobbs believes Benjamin’s romantic landscapes were always telling stories that were close to him. "He felt life very intensely so it wasn't just about painting trees and skies, it was a layered story of love loss, romance all through these works," he said.

"When he was in a landscape he wasn't just creating images of it, he was really feeling what it was to be in this place."

Success came early to Benjamin and it appears he may have had trouble dealing with it.  He was only 18 when he exhibited in his first group show in Manhattan. Tim Olsen, director of Olsen Galleries thought there was a melancholy in his work that paralleled his own life. “He got distracted by the promise of big money and lost his way a bit, but that's what happens with young talent.  Jason didn't know how to deal with success. It's an enormous tragedy."

Hobbs said Benjamin had his demons, “felt pressure greatly” and “found solace in addiction to help him through.But he was incredibly passionate about life and love … everything he did was an outpouring of emotion.”

We Just Knew He'd Be There (2014), oil on linen, 120 x 180 cm (Artsy.net)

Benjamin’s work has been exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Parliament House Collection and in over 40 solo shows globally.  Actor Kevin Spacey is one of a number of Hollywood identities to have acquired his work.

References;

Tiffany Jones Fine Art

Australian Broadcasting Commission

The Guardian

Art Through The Darkness - Bronwyn Oliver

I am making my way through Hannah Fink’s 2017 book titled “Bronwyn Oliver; Strange Things”, an expose on the life and work of the Australian sculptor Bronwyn Oliver (1959-2006).  This book brought back fond memories of a major exhibition of her work held at the Tarrawarra Museum of Art in 2016.  It was thought to be shameful that a decade after her suicide, her home state of New South Wales had not held a major retrospective of her work, and thus it was left to Tarrawarra – full credit to them.

Oliver's first exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 1986

Oliver’s one time partner, the wine writer and critic Huon Hooke, wrote an effecting preface to Fink’s book.  “My enduring image of Bronwyn at work is like this.  She is sitting cross-legged on the floor, on a piece of foam rubber.  Her work in on a low bench constructed of timber covered with fireproof bricks…..what happened in that studio I regard as some kind of fabulous, mysterious process in which bits of dull lifeless metal were transformed into beautiful objects full of wonderment, and the agent of that process was fire, delivered by a magic wand ” 

She seemed to be happy only when working in her studio, and therein lies the problem.  Only one day into her honeymoon with fellow artist Leslie Oliver at Narooma on the New South Wales south coast, Bronwyn got bored and suggested they “get back to work.”

Her sculptures have been described as hauntingly beautiful and are admired by major collectors and critics alike.  She was a fiercely driven artist who disliked small talk and found social engagements difficult.

Curl/Schiaparelli, 1988,  80x80x25 cm copper

Oliver was always a high achiever.  She was Dux of her high school and later was determined to continue her art studies overseas.  She successfully applied for a scholarship for her master’s degree at the Chelsea Art School in London in 1982.  Whilst there, she met Mike Parr and the two of them found they had a lot in common.  Both believed that if they didn’t have their art, they would be “in deep trouble.”  At one stage, she was sharing lodgings with the now renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor.  They had long conversations together and she felt she needed to “get to know him better to understand myself as an artist”.

She also underwent counselling in London “it was mainly about Mum and me and my place in the family…and not worry about being defensive, threatened or over-sensitive” in social situations.  She was rarely the easiest to get along with.  When her husband Leslie spent 5 weeks in London with her, she expressed surprise at the strength of her dependence on him to confirm her feelings about the world, and the intense isolation she felt after he left.  But it was also whilst she was in England that her 2 year marriage ended.

Unity, 2001, 100x100x15 cm  copper

Never-the-less it was a highly successful 12 months in England for Oliver and, despite several job offers, she returned home where “I could make my own path, wherever I wanted to go.”  Much of her early work featured fibreglass, cane and paper.  Later she switched to copper and other metals.

During an interview with writer Maggie Gilchrist, Oliver was asked what her purpose was in making art.  Her response was very revealing; “I am a loner.  I’m not very sociable.  It’s really the only way I have of communicating with people.  I’m a social disaster when it comes chit chat or going to parties….This is the best way I know how to communicate my feelings about life.  I am exploring the world when I make these.  I’m putting my delight in how things are constructed, not just physically but all the unspoken structures….It’s my way of making sense of the world.”

Tarrawarra exhibition 2016

Oliver believed in the concept of space flowing through an object.  “I was intrigued by the idea of enclosing space.  If it can be enclosed and held, why not let it flow out and get away at the same time?  Having both the inside and outside simultaneously visible in a way denies the physicality of an object.  The openness is a kind of humble truth – nothing is hidden.”

Oliver strongly objected to any reference to handiwork in her art.  She thought that referring to the craft aspect trivialized her intentions.  The idea behind the work was paramount in the process of making her art.  Fink believes some people underestimated the depth of her ambition, not for fame or accolades but for art of the highest order – for transcendence.  She wanted her work to take on a life, a presence which was removed from this world. 

Ammonite, 2005, 95x90x9 cm  copper

“I am trying to create life.  Not in the sense of beings, or animals, or plants, or machines, but ‘life’ in the sense of a kind of force, a presence, an energy to my objects that a human can respond to on the level of soul or spirit.”

Judging from what I saw at Tarrawarra, Oliver succeeded.  There is an organic quality to her work, and yet an otherworldliness at the same time.  I was drawn into her work, wanting to wrap my arms around some of them.  The tactile nature of her work seemed in defiance of the materials used.

Between 1986 and her death in 2006, Oliver presented 18 solo exhibitions and from 1983 participated in numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas.  She also undertook many commissions where she worked closely with clients and stakeholders, and for 19 years taught art to primary school students.  In 1984 she won the Moet & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship.  Her work can be found in public and private collections both in Australia and overseas.

Two Rings, 2006,  copper

There are conflicting accounts of Oliver’s final years, but she was dogged by depression for most of her life. She once announced to a startled friend that she had divorced her family. Analysis of her hair following her suicide found extremely high concentrations of copper which may have exacerbated her mental condition. It’s thought that the breakup of her relationship with Huon Hooke (for which she blames herself) may have been the last straw. She hung herself in her studio amid newly completed works for an exhibition. She left no personal letters, only a note in a neighbour's letterbox for her former partner: "Please ask Huon to feed the cats."

Vine, 2006, copper. Hilton Hotel, Sydney

I am indebted to fellow Gippsland artist Jo Caminiti for talking me into visiting the Bronwyn Oliver exhibition at Tarrawarra.   A memorable experience.

References;

Australian Financial Review  

‘Bronwyn Oliver, Strange Things’,  Hannah Fink, Piper Press, 2017

Tarrawarra Museum Of Art