12 Mar 2010
Events & Exhibitions - 05.03.2007
Chris O'Doherty is often referred to as a Renaissance man – artist, singer, songwriter and musician. The National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery is currently showing the first major survey exhibition spanning O'Doherty's thirty-year career as an artist.
Since 1976, Chris O’Doherty has maintained a successful career as a musician and visual artist. Featuring over 80 paintings, prints, works on paper (including original posters), objects and other memorabilia, The art of Chris O’Doherty is the first major survey of this artist’s work. Perhaps best known for his long involvement with Mambo, and with the celebrated Australian band, Mental as Anything which he formed with four other art school students in 1976, the exhibition focuses on O’Doherty’s serious exhibiting career over the last thirty years, indeed since the formation of Mental as Anything in 1976.
After its premier season at the National Trust S H Ervin gallery in Sydney, the exhibition will tour to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in Victoria (7 March – 9 April 2007) and other venues.
O’Doherty’s contribution to Australia’s art since the 1970s is visually compelling from the portraits which Patrick White generously purchased and gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the 1980s, through to the large oil on canvas Australian Jesus and golden motorbike in long picture painting commissioned by Dare Jennings, founder of Mambo, in 1995. Portraits, house paintings, surrealist manifestoes and commercial art and design commissions reveal the breadth of the artist’s creative ability. The tiny landscape paintings in particular (some as small as 5 x 6 centimetres) draw one in for quite contemplation. Like miniature religious icons, their silken detail and sublime beauty beg for an enclosed viewing space away from the intrusion of passing traffic.
The exhibition investigates O’Doherty’s commentary on society and his use of religious, political and popular culture themes. It reveals that beneath the artist’s humour and amusing parodies lies incisive insight, sympathy, serious intent and expressions of social concern. Some works, like those created for or used by Mambo, unashamedly challenge existing social mores and knock society’s sacred cows off their podiums. Whether it’s in painting, drawing, design or song, this artist makes no bones about stating his convictions and in many ways it is this aspect of his work that has endeared him to his adopted homeland. While it might be hard to imagine that an artist who depicts chooks and humans with their bums blown apart, could be concerned with issues such as generosity of spirit and human dignity, fairness and compassion, the exhibition makes it quite evident that behind the humour lies a serious intent, sometimes reflected in a menacing presence, at other times cloaked in sheer silliness and buffoonery. At the same time, there’s gentleness behind O’Doherty’s poetic aggression and almost missionary zeal to politicize. No bones about it, O’Doherty uses his art and indeed his music, as a philosopher, social commentator and activist.
Carefully curated, the exhibition draws on the artist’s own collection and works in public and private collections. It successfully constructs zones of experience, albeit determined largely by the National Trust’s S.H. Ervin Gallery building. It’s interesting to ponder how the experience of O’Doherty’s art may have differed if one had toured the space from the rear of the gallery – starting with his calmer, unpopulated, ‘twilight’ paintings, and Smart Street Film’s recently completed Golden Sandals - a tribute to O’Doherty’s life, art, music and philosophy in which O’Doherty engages in an animated conversation with his own ‘Aussie Jesus’ creation. To encounter these two aspects of the exhibition before moving on to the ‘broad daylight’ section, populated with O’Doherty’s more familiar works reeling with irreverent humour, riotous colour, Mambo cosmology and theology, eerie daylight and neatly constructed homes, may have led to a slightly different reading of his artistic journey and perception. The more introspective and moody ‘twilight’ landscapes reveal how the artist sees form and observes his surroundings at any given moment, even when traveling in the country by car between gigs, as he often did when touring with Mental as Anything. Although quite small, these landscape works are surprisingly powerful, evoking the atmosphere of Patrick White and Tim Winton’s eerie Australian fiction. Loaded and brooding, they seem to be awaiting the invasion of light and O’Doherty’s surrealist, suburban and alien critters and fantasies.
In this order, the culminating iconic artworks, the two largest pieces in the show - Bush Suburbs, a Victorian Tapestry Workshop tapestry of 2002 (1.8 x 2.92m) and Australian Jesus and golden motorbike in long picture, a rare, large oil on canvas painting of 1995 measuring approximately 1.5 x 4 metres - may have been viewed in a new light.
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive and superbly illustrated catalogue, and a lively program of Sunday afternoon guest speakers and special performances by Dog Trumpet, the band formed by Chris O’Doherty and his brother and fellow artist Peter O’Doherty in 1991.
S.H. Ervin Gallery
Reg Mombassa
Dog Trumpet
Smart Street Films
Watters Gallery
TAGS
+ Australian Design
+ Posters
+ Illustration
After its premier season at the National Trust S H Ervin gallery in Sydney, the exhibition will tour to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in Victoria (7 March – 9 April 2007) and other venues.
O’Doherty’s contribution to Australia’s art since the 1970s is visually compelling from the portraits which Patrick White generously purchased and gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the 1980s, through to the large oil on canvas Australian Jesus and golden motorbike in long picture painting commissioned by Dare Jennings, founder of Mambo, in 1995. Portraits, house paintings, surrealist manifestoes and commercial art and design commissions reveal the breadth of the artist’s creative ability. The tiny landscape paintings in particular (some as small as 5 x 6 centimetres) draw one in for quite contemplation. Like miniature religious icons, their silken detail and sublime beauty beg for an enclosed viewing space away from the intrusion of passing traffic.
The exhibition investigates O’Doherty’s commentary on society and his use of religious, political and popular culture themes. It reveals that beneath the artist’s humour and amusing parodies lies incisive insight, sympathy, serious intent and expressions of social concern. Some works, like those created for or used by Mambo, unashamedly challenge existing social mores and knock society’s sacred cows off their podiums. Whether it’s in painting, drawing, design or song, this artist makes no bones about stating his convictions and in many ways it is this aspect of his work that has endeared him to his adopted homeland. While it might be hard to imagine that an artist who depicts chooks and humans with their bums blown apart, could be concerned with issues such as generosity of spirit and human dignity, fairness and compassion, the exhibition makes it quite evident that behind the humour lies a serious intent, sometimes reflected in a menacing presence, at other times cloaked in sheer silliness and buffoonery. At the same time, there’s gentleness behind O’Doherty’s poetic aggression and almost missionary zeal to politicize. No bones about it, O’Doherty uses his art and indeed his music, as a philosopher, social commentator and activist.
Carefully curated, the exhibition draws on the artist’s own collection and works in public and private collections. It successfully constructs zones of experience, albeit determined largely by the National Trust’s S.H. Ervin Gallery building. It’s interesting to ponder how the experience of O’Doherty’s art may have differed if one had toured the space from the rear of the gallery – starting with his calmer, unpopulated, ‘twilight’ paintings, and Smart Street Film’s recently completed Golden Sandals - a tribute to O’Doherty’s life, art, music and philosophy in which O’Doherty engages in an animated conversation with his own ‘Aussie Jesus’ creation. To encounter these two aspects of the exhibition before moving on to the ‘broad daylight’ section, populated with O’Doherty’s more familiar works reeling with irreverent humour, riotous colour, Mambo cosmology and theology, eerie daylight and neatly constructed homes, may have led to a slightly different reading of his artistic journey and perception. The more introspective and moody ‘twilight’ landscapes reveal how the artist sees form and observes his surroundings at any given moment, even when traveling in the country by car between gigs, as he often did when touring with Mental as Anything. Although quite small, these landscape works are surprisingly powerful, evoking the atmosphere of Patrick White and Tim Winton’s eerie Australian fiction. Loaded and brooding, they seem to be awaiting the invasion of light and O’Doherty’s surrealist, suburban and alien critters and fantasies.
In this order, the culminating iconic artworks, the two largest pieces in the show - Bush Suburbs, a Victorian Tapestry Workshop tapestry of 2002 (1.8 x 2.92m) and Australian Jesus and golden motorbike in long picture, a rare, large oil on canvas painting of 1995 measuring approximately 1.5 x 4 metres - may have been viewed in a new light.
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive and superbly illustrated catalogue, and a lively program of Sunday afternoon guest speakers and special performances by Dog Trumpet, the band formed by Chris O’Doherty and his brother and fellow artist Peter O’Doherty in 1991.
S.H. Ervin GalleryReg MombassaDog TrumpetSmart Street FilmsWatters GalleryTAGS
+ Australian Design
+ Posters
+ Illustration