Melbourne Art Fair, "Todd Hunter & STELARC"

4th August - 8th August 2010

  • Ear on Arm
  • All My Friends
  • Chorus of a Show Girl
  • Dream of Foreign Lands
  • In the Shadow Play
  • Last Ride (and She Was)
  • Love Sick
  • Untitled II
  • Untitled V
  • Untitled III
  • Untitled VI
  • Untitled IV
  • Untitled I
  • Almost with you
  • Loose Lips
 
Raucous Rock: the paintings of Todd Hunter

There is a synergy between the exuberant, frenetic brushwork of Todd Hunter and his predilection for lyrical music especially Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and Tom Waits. A poster by Aussie garage band, The Drones, takes prime position on his studio wall. Perhaps its the way their signature sound seems most comfortable lying naked in the dark woods, suffering under haunting tales of regret and self-pity, at other moments the music partners up with a drunken, confident swagger, beckoning challengers to try and be tougher than it. Hunter embraces a similar emotional register with violent brushstrokes and tender swirls. His luscious palette presents us with moody evocations of carnal desire and aching embraces. Sometimes, we can discern writhing figures, human forms embedded in these viscous surfaces of impasto paint. Hunter has a penchant for pornography; bodies and pleasure seem to ooze out of every painting. Titles give further clues to emotive associations: All My friends, Last Ride (and She Was) and Love Sick might be songs of yearning.

Hunters atelier in Sydney is laden with canvases, tubes of oil paint, over fl owing ashtrays, rock paraphernalia, guitar magazines, art historical clippings and newspapers. Brimming with cds, brushes protruding from old tins, this chaotic environment is covered in paint. Almost every surface bears witness to the residue of his large format canvases. Hunters fractured surfaces are layered with a vortex of fervent brushstrokes. At times, these abrupt lashings become tender especially the quieter palette of Dream of Foreign Lands (2010) with its gentle, fleshy tones of pink and white. Overall, this new series is lighter than previous paintings, with deep blue and green occasionally emerging from the perimeter of the canvas.

Hunters paintings are densely covered with flourishes and potent brushstrokes that evoke movement. He relishes the expressive range of paint on canvas with all its historical overlays. We are reminded of the fleshy curves of Peter Paul Rubens, the vulgar gestures of Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacons tortured figures. Hunter processes these masters through an intimate understanding of art history, having trained at Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney after completing a visual arts degree at Griffith University in Brisbane. Hunters practice is derived from a life-drawing tradition evident in a sensuous suite of charcoal drawings gone awry. This pictorial sensibility is a precursor to the epic gesture of his paintings. With graphic ingenuity, figures are barely visible amidst smudges and trembling lines. It is possible to fathom eyes, breasts, elbows and other body parts. Even a demented embrace emerges from these macabre yet sensuous drawings.

(Natalie King, 2010)


STELARC

Ear on Arm is a speculative evolutionary prototype. It gestures to the possibility of an intimate soft prosthesis for the age of posthumanism, with its dual inflection of that which is to come after the anatomical body has run its course, as well as its seamless integration into networked ecologies. In the age of mobility, the next killer app wont be a gadget but a wireless capable organ for other bodies in other places, enabling people to locate and listen to another body elsewhere. Im pretty sure that Stelarc, not his virtual prosthesis, said that.

(Darren Tofts, 2009)