Captions: Lucas Grogan, ‘X DISARM X 12’, ink, watercolour and acrylic on matt board, 32.5 x 24.5cm, 2011. Courtesy: Iain Dawson Gallery.
Lucas Grogan’s Black + Blue paintings have been billed as “dangerous”. Don’t believe the hype. Initially they do seem provocative. At first glance, Grogan seems to have appropriated painting styles usually reserved for Indigenous artists in Arnhem Land. But on closer inspection, his blue and white ovals have as much in common with Willow Pattern plates as bark paintings.
Grogan’s paintings are actually a visual hybrid, a melange of imagery just like the famous blue and white china. The now ubiquitous 18th century dinnerware pattern is an intermingling of East and West. It was an English take on Chinese decorative arts, mass produced and marketed to a burgeoning consumer class who couldn’t afford the real thing. And like the Willow Pattern, Grogan’s heavily decorated, highly marketable, blue and white paintings borrow from multiple cultures. Traces of imagery lifted from Persian carpets, Islamic tiles and European tapestries all jostle for position with his cross-hatched marks.
Lucas Grogan, ‘You've Been Out All Night Babe’, ink on matt board, 75 x 108cm (in 5 parts), 2010. Courtesy: Iain Dawson Gallery.
Still aiming for dangerous and provocative, the gallery website claims that, “A white Australian man exposing the seedy underbelly of what has become of the fragile indigenous population of this country is bound to ruffle some feathers.” But, aside from the fact that Grogan’s works, at least superficially, resemble pseudo bark paintings, I’m not sure why we are supposed to think that he is depicting Aboriginal culture. It seems to me that Grogan’s monochromatic paintings explore the age old tradition of drinking yourself stupid and getting up to mischief: an almost universal example of secret men’s business.
In Grogan’s narrative paintings, silhouetted black figures spew their guts out and get their gear off across three series of panels. But these antics, if not exactly universal, certainly span many cultures. Grogan’s wild-men could be Japanese businessmen on a bender, Aussie footballers destined for tabloid headlines or American frat boys just getting warmed up. In fact, with the strong homoerotic imagery in many of the panels, especially the series, You’ve Been Out All Night Babe, Grogan’s work seems more Oxford Street than outback.
Lucas Grogan: Black + Blue is on at Iain Dawson Gallery until March 5, 2011.
Artists Union
February 27, 2011
I think you are very optimistically misreading a universal platitude into a grave race insult,
sincerely
Deborah
TC
February 28, 2011
Please explain….
I’m certainly not making a “race insult” (or racist insult if you prefer good grammar). I’m saying drunken behaviour crosses race/cultural boundaries! I’m insulting everyone equally, if you want to point the finger…
Deborah
March 1, 2011
I am referring to the artwork, which I think is race-baiting. Not the review, which I am only suggesting is very optimistic.
I understand from the review that you don’t believe the artist’s gallerist when he says the work is specifically about indigenous people, or that the obvious appropriation of bark painting styles underlines this, but I do.
But I am anxious that I’m being manipulated into helping build a tawdry succès de scandale on the pain and dispossession of others, so I will hush now.
TC
March 1, 2011
That’s clearer. Thanks for your comments.
Jim KABLE
October 28, 2011
Stunningly beautiful work – references Celtic intricacy/Maori interweavings AND – of course – aspects of Indigenous Arnhem Land artistic representation/style – but hey! I don’t see any sacred/secret stories of traditional culture which have been taken. In fact – uninitiated as I am – still I found I could read – at least the surface level of these images – as others have pointed out – of the drinking culture now finally coming under general societal critique in any case – and other tender realities not necessarily confronting us in the public everyday! I think Lucas GROGAN is a genius and I thank his Father for alerting me to his work!
Pyromedia
November 30, 2012
The proverbial has hit the fan for Lucas Grogan and I draw your attention to Richard Bell’s current statement:
“I have been asked to speak to journalists about an artist I don’t know. The artist is one Lucas Grogan, a white guy who apparently appropriates Aboriginal art from Arnhem Land. I had a look at his work. It is pathetic, soulless slop that, at best, aspires to decoration. It is the artistic manifestation of coitus interruptus. Grogan appropriates powerful men who have passed and in so doing he has reached the colossal low of premature emasculation.”
TC
January 13, 2013
“premature emasculation.” Noice phrase Richard Bell!
But it begs the question, is there ever a right time for emasculation?
Jim KABLE
January 13, 2013
Seems to me some space is being taken up by “clever” phrasing – especially when commentary is on an artist who is unknown to Richard BELL – at least so he states.
TC
January 13, 2013
No need to “know” the artist to be able to comment on the work!
Jim KABLE
January 13, 2013
But that’s just the point of criticism – to “know” the artist and the work and the how and the where and the why and the what – and more especially so if the criticism is negative and “pathetic, soulless slop” – surely! Richard’s harsh judgement is devoid of any background commentary – merely, as I remarked above, “clever”! Which is not enough – when so leavened with vitriol.