Archive: Issue No. 75, November 2003

It is not that painting is bad. It's just that there's a lot of crap out there.

Julia Teale's exhibition is not bad. Her new body of work is a breakthrough for the artist considering her previous work. 'Moneo', on display at the Irma Stern, provides viewers with a refreshing approach within this traditional medium. The work seems to comfortably escape the ever-so dreaded Sunday painter, AVA-esque aesthetic that seems to be driving the ongoing debates surrounding the death of painting.

The title of the exhibition refers to the Latin word moneo, and is associated with the idea of 'bringing to the notice of, to remind, or to tell of'. This provides the viewer with hints and clues and entry points into an exhibition that has a somewhat eerie, rather uncomfortable ambiance suggestive of a deserted landscape: an almost too close for comfort reminder of the opening sequence to The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez.

Overall, the exhibition is tight and well conceived. The paintings display an obsessive approach in their execution. The viewer becomes aware of every single detail of the landscape and (without much choice) is forced to consider almost every brush stroke on every single rock.

The artist has personally noted that to paint rocks is far more interesting than painting portraits - as she was known to have done in the past. She feels that painting human subjects often presents the problem of bringing a person's own identity to the painted surface. Thus painting somehow meets the model half way. In conversation, Teale suggests links to British minimalist artist Martin Creed and his idea of 'nothing', connecting this with her personal steering away from the 'meaning' of the work.

This link is unclear to me. Creed is more concerned with the idea of making something (1), and the idea of not making that something (-1), and ending up with an equation such as + 1 - 1 = 0. This does not seem to be a complete justification for the deviation of meaning on an overtly detailed painted surface. I digress.

In Persephone's Diary, Teale creates a chilling dreamlike quality by manipulating the depth of field of the image. She specifically pulls focus to a particular area on the picture plane, which is situated in an uncomfortable area of the composition. In opposition, Stony Heart is filled with rocks, where in this case almost the same amount of detail is given to every piece of stone. Teale also refers back to the mythical being Persephone with the titles of other works, such as Persephone's Walk and Persephone's Gate.

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the beautiful daughter of Demeter and Zeus. She was kidnapped by Hades and taken to his underground kingdom. Herakles came to her rescue and negotiated a compromise. She was to spend part of the year living in the Underworld with Hades, another with her mother Demeter above. Persephone is representative of the transformation of winter into spring. In the context of Teale's work, the audience is left to form their own conclusions.

Another highlight of the exhibition is a series of smaller paintings entitled Neither here nor there. Here we find landscapes painted in incredible detail, the viewpoint from behind an old, rusty fence. This work too, makes the viewer uncomfortable, placing the viewer almost inside the painting, behind the fence. The viewer becomes unsure of his or her position in relation to the landscape.

Weaker moments within the exhibition include The Other Road, which seems thin and unresolved (unfinished?) and The Long Delirious Burning Blue (for Icarus). The latter provides a change of style and includes a diagram of an aeroplane wing over an image of a beautiful blue landscape. The painting seems strong, but may have been too stylistically different from the rest of the work for inclusion in the exhibition. The fact that it is shown in its own space becomes the painting's saving grace. Perhaps a similar editorial decision should have been made with The Other Road.

More beautiful moments occur in paintings such as Moneo where the artist deliberately plays with perspective, echoing techniques used by a younger generation of naturalistic painters in South Africa. The viewer becomes uncomfortable without realising the perspectival manipulations at first.

My overall impression was positive, though I was not blown away. Teale's show reminded me of a conversation between British painter Gary Hume and art critic Matthew Collings. In discussing some of his recent work, Hume asked the question: "Yeah, but does it kick arse?". Collings wittily replied: "It doesn't have to kick arse all the time".

October 14 - November 1