Brett Whiteley's starry night

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Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley's starry night, oil on canvas, 120x270cm.

My final work in the Brett Whiteley series, and the final work towards to Masters degree, is this triptych celebrating Brett Whiteley's  apotheosis ...  his ascension into Australia's cultural firmament - a star at last.

The 270x120 cm work consists of three 90x120cm panels:
Brett Whiteley departs Thirroul
Peter Pan over Lavender Bay
Brett Whiteley illumines our firmament
While each panel is intended to work as a self-contained painting, the work was envisaged as the three placed together to form a complete narrative.

To date my Brett Whiteley series has consisted of numerous works, among others, that explored his vulnerability, isolation and depression so I wanted to finish with this more joyous celebration of his achievement.

The triptych references Vincent's painting Starry night (HERE). I felt this was a fitting motif given that Whiteley worshiped Vincent. He was painting portraits of Vincent in the early 1970's and in 1983 had his his exhibition 'Another way of looking at Vincent Van Gogh' hung by the Gallery of NSW. Brett's tribute received a hostile reception from the critics. One mocked that Brett has been struggling to become Vincent for the past fifteen years. So i thought it only a reasonable gift to Brett to allow him to ascend at last into Vincent's starry heavens.

Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley departs Thirroul, oil on canvas, 90x120cm.

This first panel depicts Brett's spirit departing the hotel in Thirroul where he died. He heads upward, out over the East coast of NSW. He seems to be entering a portal on the right of the painting.

Harry Kent, Peter Pan over Lavender Bay, oil on canvas, 90x120cm.

That portal turns out to be the window from his painting, Interior with time past (HERE) with its window of his home looking out over Lavender Bay on Sydney Harbour. And so i depicted Brett's spirit, Brett the eternal boy Peter Pan, flying past outside under the Southern Cross (this is my Oz night sky, not Vincent's French one), sailing over the Opera House sails that reference his painting Opera House (HERE).

Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley illumines our firmament, oil on canvas, 90x120cm.

In the third panel he takes his place in the pantheon of stars twinkling down onto the Australian cultural landscape, down on his home town of Sydney and the bridge that used to draw and paint so often, down on those savage critics whose names are already forgotten, and down on the young generations energised by just discovering his work for the first time. This is Brett at his zenith, Harlequin funster and mystic, arms raised in haunting and blessing.

And so, gentle viewer, we arrive at the end of this my Brett Whiteley meditations, and indeed, the end of my Masters research Project. In the next couple of posts I will be reporting on the assessment and giving some thought on where to next with this blog, if anywhere. Thank you one and all for sticking with me through this journey.

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More apparitions

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Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley's apparition #9, oil on board, 60x90cm.

Here are some, the last, of my Brett Whiteley apparitions. Apparition #9 (above) is my exploration of how much or how little is needed to suggest a face. How clouded, ambiguous, or anomalous can a portrait be? I was thinking about Vincent's comment in a letter to Theo, "The real painter does not paint things as they are, after a dry and learned analysis. They paint them as they themselves feel them to be ... I want my paintings to be inaccurate and anomalous in such a way that they become lies, if you like, but lies that are more truthful than literal truth."

 The others below are two more inks.

Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley's apparition #7, ink on paper, 

These two ink Apparitions are a bit wilder than some of the more graceful inks in my previous post. Picasso once said, "when i paint a wild horse you may not see the horse but you will sure see the wildness'. Well, these Apparitions purport to be Whiteley, and they are loosely featured on his curly mop, cleft chin, low straight mouth and baggy eyes, but in reality they are invented Expressionist figuration. Which means the wildness is not Whiteley's but mine own, i guess. But then as they used to say in the Renaissance, "Ogni pittore dipinge sè" (Every painter paints himself).

Harry Kent, Brett Whiteley's apparition #8, ink on paper, 

And finally, my apologies everyone for the delay in responding your lovely comments on the previous post. I've only just returned from a trip away to Sydney and have been flat out getting ready for my assessment exhibition. Am so looking forward to getting a life back!


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how to 'do' a gallery

Harry Kent's painting Regrets from here

In a recent comment, Obiterspeak (see right - Blogs I Follow) provided a very engaging description of her experience in art galleries http://tachisme.blogspot.com/2010/04/self-portrait-with-crepe-skin.html  which made me think more about mine own, and wonder if there is a ‘right’ way to ‘do’ a gallery. And even more fundamentally, what a gallery is anyway that it makes me feel the way I do in there, and act in the peculiar way that I do. I mean, I don’t carry on like that in a supermarket, where there are also things on display to study, consider and relate to.

Peter Timms provides a description of the gallery viewer’s progress in What's Wrong with Contemporary Art? 

“The next time you visit a gallery, sit yourself down in an inconspicuous place and, instead of the art, watch the visitors. Most people will spend no more than five seconds in front of each work.They will probably devote more time to reading the labels. Very often, they will simply saunter past without pausing, their heads cocked to one side. Thirty seconds for each work is an unusually long time, and more than a minute starts to look pretentious. All you can do in thirty seconds is to take in the visual hit: what the work looks like and whether or not it pleases or excites you. You can't begin to make even the most superficial assessment of it. If a work happens to prick your interest, that will rarely induce you to contemplate it longer, but instead will send you off to lean more about it from some other source. Maybe you’ll buy the exhibition catalogue and read the essay, or wait for the exhibition to be reviewed in the newspaper. Perhaps you’ll ask someone with more knowledge than you have to explain it to you. In other words, you will seek information from some source other than the work itself. We don't usually regard the viewing of a work of art as an act of discovery but rather as a prompt or cue for investigation elsewhere.

By their very nature most galleries do nothing to encourage intimate encounters with the art they show. They are interested in getting as many people as possible through the front door, not in fostering contemplation of the art. Even the most visitor-friendly tend to be cold and unwelcoming, designed to impress rather than reassure. If seating is provided, it will be of the sort that says: 'You may perch here for a moment or two, but don't make yourself comfortable'. Many contemporary art museums, such as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, seem designed as statements of naked power and intimidation. Not even the most seductive art can induce us to linger in such hostile environments” (p. 109).

What Timms doesn’t do is explain why those people went in there in the first place. What were they hoping for? Why do they keep coming back? Why have half a million Australians queued for hours to see the Impressionists?  "Some people are very quick, some people seem to take six hours. But everyone can go through at their own pace" http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/16/2874569.htm. I am not as pessimistic as Timms. I have less difficulty accepting the plurality of motives and needs people may have. And hence the plurality of ways of progressing through a gallery even though looked at through the lens of cultural anthropology, gallery visits are a mighty strange beast.

Upon our initial visit we may be walking zombies with eyes like saucers. After repeat visits we may rush straight to our favourites. Nowadays, whenever visiting the National Gallery in London, I stride resolutely straight through to Vincent’s Wheat fields with cypresses, September 1889. (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-a-wheatfield-with-cypresses ) .Vincent painted 3 of these, each different. And an interesting pen drawing of the same which shows how deliberate his swirling forms were, how carefully he placed and accentuated ‘information-rich’ areas where lines change direction. This painting absolutely glows. The colours so finely tuned. The joy so abundant. It is fresh every time I see it. I am refreshed every time I see it. But yes, I walk briskly through the Pre-Raphaelites and past Stubbs. I’ve dwelt on them in the past, heard the exegesis of volunteer guides. I know my eyes and my feet can only take so much. And nowadays I’m after slow art http://slowartday.com/  – a few pieces dwelt on, breathed in, memorised, like a familiar face.

For me galleries are places to explore, to poke about, sometimes to drift with Wordsworth lonely as cloud, other times to storm through ferociously hunting a quarry, and other times to be a calm methodical student with notebook in hand. Sometimes the mind out of focus, passively massaged. Other times sharp, analytical. Sometimes tolerant, accepting. Other times picky, critical, short-tempered and judgemental. Sometimes, like Obiterspeak, “driven only by what seems like an unintelligent desire to see or take in ... I just look or go where my appetite takes me. Sometimes though it seems as if ghosts pull me in different directions “. Though often enough nowadays, I spend time getting up close, looking at surface, examining brush-work. Or thinking about historical or stylistic context. Or an artist’s personal tale. Or decoding use of symbolism. Or delighting in aesthetic arousal. Or simply looking for the basement cafe. Which of these is the wrong way to be in a gallery? Which is the ‘correct’ way?

I believe all are the right way. How I wandered aimlessly round the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery as a teenager was as right for me back then as it was right for me last year as I purposefully sought out Marlene Duma’s work at the Pompidou. Because the mind we bring at any given time is the right mind. What Zen calls Everyday Mind. (http://www.shotokai.com/ingles/filosofia/zen.html  , http://www.zenmontreal.ca/en/teacher/everyday.htm ). There is nothing special we have to ‘be’ or to ‘do’. We are constantly ‘becoming’ and in choosing to keep company with the works in galleries, we will inexorably become one who notices more, reflects more, and feels more.

But sure, having knowledge enables greater complexities to be understood. Having more language enables more to be articulated. Having more developed sensibilities enables a richer experience. But these are all matters of degree. First and foremost, I appreciate that whacky things such as galleries ever came to into existence (however distorted the art market may be) and that, historically, the human struggle for equality and opportunity was the mid-wife to their birth. I love to see old widowers seeking the company of Borland’s Elle Macpherson 1, the homeless keeping warm in front Brett’s Alchemy 2, Japanese tourists puzzle before Nolan’s Ned 3, and well-behaved school groups making notes on the floor beneath Blue Poles 4. We all belong there. We all bring there what we each have. And maybe take away a little more than what we arrived with when it’s time to go.

It’s all good

1   http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/collection_info.php?searchtype=advanced&searchstring=:::::1:&irn=94
2    http://www.flickr.com/photos/catef/514394127/
3    http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/sidneynolan/images/EXHI004921_600.jpg
4    http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/userimages/user-131355_1168559048.JPG