EXHIBITION: MIKE CHAVEZ, ADRIAN DOYLE, DANIEL BRINSMEAD AND DOUG BARTLET
BY JASMINE MCLENNAN
Relationships, popular culture, domesticity and identity are explored in an upcoming exhibition at Harrison Galleries. Mike Chavez, Adrian Doyle, Daniel Brinsmead and Doug Bartlet, who all have modern, pop-art, and graffiti-esque qualities to their work make up the show.
In a comic book style Mike Chavez deals with relationships and sexual politics as well as the notion of identity within Australia. ‘My work examines racial identity, colonial baggage and a collective yearning for a lost golden age, as well as issues of globalisation and the Filipino Diaspora,’ says Chavez. Animal characters with human qualities are often used in his paintings that Mike says allows him greater social commentary. ‘It also allows the viewer to step back and to see their own foibles and personal dramas in a non-confronting and entertaining way,’ says Chavez.
This technique is particularly evident in Mike’s controversial work Take it all Bitch. This is a painting of a grey hound mounting another greyhound, speaking the words in the title. ‘It is not my intention to offend but rather to open up discussion about sexual politics, gender power struggle, ‘raunchy culture’ and the proliferation of misogynistic rap music,’ says Chavez.
Adrian Doyle is more interested in the lives of Australians beneath the veneer of the dream of materialism and suburbia. Here, he says, where people live individually (up a drive way in a weatherboard quarter block), there are suppressed emotions, fragmented families and spiritual abandonment. This is where Australia lives, yet domestic contentment is as fallacious as any children’s toy.
Doyle uses bright and playful colours with bold isolated shapes, figures and objects that make his work un-realistic and juxta-posed.
Mike Chavez, Adrian Doyle, Daniel Brinsmead and Doug Bartlet
Until une 27
Harrison Galleries
294 Glenmore Road, Paddington
Tues – Fri 10am-6pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, or by appointment
93807100 or www.harrisongalleries.com.au
