Lucas Grogan Until NeverHosier Lane Australia6 April - 21 May 2011 In BACKCHAT, Grogan fuses body painting, text, embroidery and low-fi photography onto silk surfaces. Grogan's work is best served raw. Revealing the private practices of boozey nights out, the message is confident, complex and imbued with the right amount of jest. Grogan's works make the private public. The artist's bed was the scene of the work's construction. The quilting style Grogan employs returns the subjects to the private domain. Here, the depictions are of friends who have departed Australia through the pursuit of opportunity, commitment or deportation. Depicted in Grogan's 'ethnic drag', these figures were painted immediately before departure, however long, short or permanent. Their desire to return, or the acknowledgement of regret for leaving, is memorialised in the creation of these quilts. These ideas of departure and isolation extend to 'the island' as a central metaphor in Grogan's most recent work. It represents the duality of belonging and exclusion, protection and rejection, the within and the without. Quilts and shield-like forms act as microcosms for 'our' island. They are objects connoting ideas of comfort, defence and sanctuary. The work is beautiful, delicate and fastidiously created. Lucas Grogan is represented in several public and private collections, including Artbank.
Related
Related
Related
Related