Arch is Balding
What:
Arch is Balding
Who:
40+ artists including Matt Sewell (UK), Leigh Rigozzi (Sydney), Peader Thomas, Aeon and Simon Gardam
Where:
No Vacancy, 27-33 Red Cape Lane, QV
When:
Launching TONIGHT! Thurs Feb 5, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs until Feb 11
Oslo Davis's new work Peter Hitchener, part of a group show of new portraits at No Vacancy, is a somewhat protracted affair that left this reviewer both wanting more, and wanting less.
Peter Donald Beauchamp Hitchener (61), popular Nine Network anchorman, is rendered in pen and ink in Davis' trademark style mostly recently employed to mixed acclaim in his 'Overheard' series in the Sunday Age. But what was Davis thinking when waded into the trepidatious waters of prime-time news television celebrity portraiture? Hitchener? Rendered in thin fey lines with a haphazard application of ink? Sure, the likeness is spot on, but it looks like something drawn using a light box: there's no interpretation, it's not caricature and it says nothing.
But maybe that's the point? Hitchener, who has built a career on the strength of his voice is rendered mute, gagged almost, frozen and dead-eyed, gazing out not from the glass of a TV screen but from that of a cheap picture frame.
While No Vacancy may have taken a risk with Oslo Davis it hasn't with the rest of this sensational group show, Arch is Balding (playing off the Archibald prize) opening tonight. Go for the Oslo, but stay for the rest.
Medium: Illustration
Drink: Long neck in a paper bag
Keywords: No Vacancy Gallery
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