The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
Louise Hearman's first solo show contains an extraordinary number of works: nine large can vasses, 130 small paintings, and 33 drawings. By the end of the exhibition almost all of these had sold.
Hearman, the artist, wishes to remain dis tanked from the attention that naturally follows from this feat. This intention is clearly anticipated when the viewer initially enters the gallery and finds a catalogue that refers to the works only by number. When pressed about their construction, Hearman maintains that the medium is irrelevant; everything is fair game; the works should be judged on their merits.
So the viewer walks into the gallery with no path laid out. This is an uncanny scene. The large paintings display figures prostrated on a surface without depth. There is neither horizontal line nor landscape through which the viewer can step into the paintings. The bodies lie limp, without relation to the heads propped on their necks, staring at the viewer in a manner that is sometimes frightened, sometimes insolent. Bodies in oversized clothes lie on a bed of rough brushwork in fungoid colours. Paint has sometimes been thrown over them. The smaller paintings add features of ships, illuminated cranes, and fireworks. Their faces share with the larger paintings the flecks of white that stab life into the oil.
In terms of atmosphere, the show at City Gallery creates a similar mood to Bill Henson's 1988 show of photographs at Realities. The nocturnal scenes provide the setting in which the human presence is given a deathly transience. The blue hour of twilight casts faces in a dull glow, seeming to show something of a palpitation that is silenced by day.
While Bill