Reviews on Inside Out Upside Down Gallery Site
Salon de Refuse 2009
The Salon is generally a place to go and see paintings that came close to being included in the Archibald and Wynn prizes. In a few cases the paintings are often better than what gets hung at the formal exhibition. This year was something of a disappointment.
As with many of paintings in the Archibald exhibition most portraits had ineffectual backgrounds that added nothing to the imagery but did take up space to no apparent point. Like many of the Archibald exhibition paintings the handling of the distinctive features such as hands and faces was deficient in the representational works.
The best of the traditional form works did leave me wondering why it had not been included in the Archibald. The image relies on elements other than just the figure to bring the viewer closer to the subject. Compositionally it is not a classical work but it does say something that in twenty years time will be understandable. Unlike many of the Archibald portraits that are just a head (a head is just a head, that needs a master painter to give any sort of understanding of the subject& and there are few of these in the Archibald hanging) this painting shows the individual in a context that will be comprehensible in the future.
Landscape wise the selection is not exciting in the least. The use of paint is the main point of the images hung. Perhaps the selectors are saying that we no longer have a relationship to the visual world and we have transported ourselves some where else, to a new far more boring dimension.
Hopefully next year the artists making entries will take a new direction and drag the judges back to the real world the only one we have that will make any sense in the years to come.
author: Neil Miley