STEPHEN BUSH – ‘Festooned’
SUTTON GALLERY - 14th Oct - 12th Nov 2016
The show comprises eleven works ranging from medium to large oils on
canvas and includes two from earlier phases in the artist’s career, reminders
of underlying consistencies as well as the latest restatement of his The Lure of Paris (2016) in which Babar
the Elephant dolls are staged in scaling exploits on a seaside cliff at evening.
It is a nicely judged selection for the space. The centrepiece is
unquestionably Pin Cord (2016) at 177
X 380cm, a storming panorama that was used in a drastically enlarged
photographic form for this year’s mural for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s
foyer in Sydney. There it measured an imposing 7 X 16 metres. However, the
artist deliberately played no part in the installation and cropping of the work
to accommodate the entrance stairs and this, together with an unavoidable
softening of focus to the print, gave the work a separate identity that merited
its own title – Cord du Roi (2016) –
a Franglais play on corduroy, but otherwise typically opaque to pictorial meaning.
Cord du Roi (2016) - installation view
Pin Cord (2016) 177 X 380 cm oil and enamel on canvas
The painting gives full rein to the artist’s characteristic poured
enamels and marbled blending, subtly worked into bright alpine backgrounds for
costumed and historical figures, various architecture and farm animals. The
colour is not quite as garish and anti-natural as in previous years and
foreground elements are a little more sparing, making for a more measured, suitably
expansive arrangement. But essentially the work continues to balance a flowing,
transient world against a disparate clutch of poses and facilities, never quite
integrating person with place, never quite sustaining either. The show title
‘Festooned’ thus might apply to the flowing linkages between isolated objects
as essentially decorative, or conversely to the objects as decorating the flow
of the land. The churning landscape could easily suggest erosion or landslides,
an ecological agenda, but somehow the mood is always light, the skies blue,
distant peaks sparkle and the surging surroundings register more as fantasy on
endless opportunity and acceptance. The initial impression is a strangely
numbing sense of remoteness or inconsequence. It is an impression not easily
overcome.
Earlier work dwelt on post-colonial themes of mythic discovery mocked
and an estranged or baffling heritage but throughout this century the concern
has steadily shifted to nature at its loftiest, as fantasy or hallucination and
to a stylistic array stretching from abstraction to figuration, a range that
cleverly parallels human presence upon a wilderness landscape, history after
fantasy, fixity over flux. It is an elegant structure, not just for settlement
or exploitation but for its fleeting, fractured impact, for the impermanence of
culture. Colour too ranges from flat, brilliant hues to the niceties of costume
and tonal modelling, not quite to realism but rather an approximate for whole
areas by distance or terrain. Yet the structure is not simply one of smooth
integration but of degrees of disparity. The work is also noted for its
collage-like placements of foreground objects, particularly figures, buildings
and farm animals that highlight conflicting tonalities, scale, perspective and
detail. These elements almost fit, or fit only in certain ways or with certain
parts, so that continuity steadily weakens with their placement, splinters into
fragments.
This aspect also has its painterly component. Selected objects are often
broadly brushed with decided panache, a tendency that has amplified in recent
years, giving them an assertive vigour, a fluent, confident facture. Here
fluency contrasts with fluidity. Where initial pourings emphasise a passive
pooling of energies, dashing brushwork is keen to summarise and declare limits.
This is particularly true of figures. It is notable also that while figures
allow free summary and an expressive flourish, matters of proportion,
perspective and tonality are maintained. The expressive for Bush is never
Expressionist. In the present show, the small work Coonil (2016) is probably as close as the artist has come to
Expressionism in figures. Similarly, the work is never impasto or heavily
worked because so much of the artist’s touch stresses brevity, placement and even
timing, a ‘one touch’ confidence that brooks no doubt or struggle.
Coonil (2016) 95 X 95 cm oil and enamel on canvas
Taken in combination, the two sides to pictorial structure tend to hold
one another in check. Terse brushwork declares a limit to flowing licence,
flowing background measures the extent of brushed vigour. On these terms, the
work reveals something more like a personal or psychological dimension. The
distance or detachment of historical fragments flags not just an absurd history
or chaotic nature but a curious frustration with roles and identity, with an
adequate selection of artefacts accordingly. The goal is not just to maintain
the picture space but to suitably develop it, to cultivate it in the fullest
sense, which involves priorities. Here the work finds greater traction, at
least for this critic. Permutations on the structure have steadily increased
with the inclusion of the figure to this phase properly commencing around 2008,
poured areas sometimes replaced with broadly brushed enamels from around 2011
and contemporary and administrative buildings introduced around 2010.
Occasionally the work grows more abstract, all but abandoning landscape, as in A Mule Called South (2012) while smaller
works sometimes return to the monochromes of an earlier phase, as in Lady Campbell Weed Lord Adelaide (2010)
where the gestural is carried through to a more familiar abstraction in the
background. But these forays only reinforce the underlying structure to the
work since the introduction of poured enamels in about 2003.
A Mule Called South (2012) [NOT IN SHOW]
Lady Campbell Weed Lord Adelaide (2010) [NOT IN SHOW]
In the current show perhaps the most intriguing departure occurs in Bride of Lammermoor (2016) where an alpine setting is replaced with a lakeside and distant institutional buildings, possibly partly submerged. Here it is the foreground that is loosest or most painterly, distance that lends focus and stability.
The Bride of Lammermoor (2016) 183 X 183 cm oil and enamel on canvas
Here also it is a contrast between primitive industrial equipment, given
vigorous treatment, a stylish mid-twentieth century sideboard asserting a rival
perspective in realist mode and a distant administrative edifice, significantly,
on the other side of a body of water. The contrast is not really between the
flowing and the fluent now but rather the cursory and the diligent, the
sweeping and polished, the familiar and formal. It is not hard to see
differences between labour, luxury and governance in their positioning and why
governance should enter the picture where nature is at its flattest and
together with luxury steer the picture to calmer waters. But calmer waters do
not always run deeper and divisions within culture carry a much less compelling
pictorial continuity than nature at its runniest, ground at its height. While
the work is interesting thematically, stylistically it does not quite have the
expected punch. Perhaps the distant buildings needed just a little more
contrast or saturation (or that could be just the habits of a Photoshopper). It may be that artefacts need some stricter
linear or tonal stylisation rather than a default realism to effectively
contrast with the impulsive and gestural. It may be the landscapes will become
more urban. For this we must wait to see how Bush continues his project. Whatever
happens, it is most assuredly a sophisticated and relevant one.
This last point is worth urging, since of late the artist’s reputation overseas
would seem greater than at home. While he has shown with distinction in America
and Europe in solo and group shows over the past twenty years, been included in
the vast global compendium of contemporary painting, Vitamin C, in its 2011 edition for Phaidon and continues to enjoy
Arts Council favour, strangely he was not included in the comprehensive survey
of Australian art at the Royal Academy in London in 2013, nor in this year’s
survey of contemporary painting at ACCA – ‘Painting. More Painting.’ The
reasons for this no doubt involve changing art world fashions and politics, but
one suspects the work falls from favour firstly because of its detached and calculating
character. Bush is hardly alone in this, here or overseas, and in lesser hands the
approach has resulted in stale academicism. Yet at its best it is pursued with profit
by artists such as Neo Rauch, Adrian Ghenie, Marius Bercea, Nigel Cooke and
Guillaume Bresson, all of whom are Bush’s juniors. It is an approach that suggests
Surrealism in its absurd fantasies but continues these to stylistic issues
rather than a monolithic realism. It broadens the interest in myth to more
topical and historical content, albeit one that remains suspicious of sources
and means. As yet there is no convenient label for this style, but it is hard
to conceive of contemporary painting as a serious undertaking without it. To
complain that Bush’s work is too circumspect or clever for example, is to trivialise
expression, cheapen style. The work continues to find ways to resist the easy
way out.
