Aaron Perkins: Chronicle

Aaron Perkins Chronicle 6 – 27th April 2019

Chronicle For emerging artist, Aaron Perkins, the genre of history

fictitious narratives woven together, autofiction seeks to

painting is of profound interest to the contemporary

critique the inability of singular accounts to constitute a

era. While prestigious institutions throughout the world

true historical narrative. Through these inconsistent

hold grand paintings historicising Renaissance battles,

autofictitous narratives, there is often a sense of

Revolutionary wars and Imperial metaphors, Perkins’ is

plotlessness– an idea which Perkins explores in these

driven to understand a way in which one can capture

works.

the historical present. With an omnipresent awareness of our global connectedness, the present moment can

The works in Chronicle combines two distinct elements–

feel as endlessly fragmented as it does hopelessly fast.

online news articles containing photojournalistic

No longer is there any illusion of a grand historical

images, and cryptic crosswords. Both of these forms

narrative, and as such, Perkins’ work aims to consider

published in either print or online news sites daily, work

the way history painting can capture a multitude of

as reportage of contemporary events and culture. By

voices.

loosely drawing photojournalistic images, Perkins simplification of line removes any ability to robustly

To develop contemporary history painting beyond the

gauge the image depicted, without knowledge of the

traditional framework, Perkins references the literary

original image. Thus, the viewer must engage their own

genre of ‘autofiction,’ in which the author uses a

subjective consciousness to consider the narrative at

protagonist, who is written in the first person and in

play. Overlaid with these images are the solutions to

some way, represents the character of the author

cryptic crosswords Perkins solves directly on the canvas,

themselves. Comprised of both autobiographical and

taken from the same day as the images. As the words

are scrawled hastily and often crossed out, the viewer is drawn between reading and viewing the artwork. The use of the cryptic crossword serves as a somewhat distilled form of contemporary news and culture, which Perkins considers as an abstraction of broader editorial statements.

By combining these two elements, Perkins work conveys the incompleteness of any historical narrative that the artist attempts to set or the viewer attempts to reconstruct. However, despite these limitations, the work paradoxically becomes part of the historical record of a given day, capturing the fragmented and incompleteness in the 21st Century.

16 July 2018 (a weary composure skirt his indifference) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 102 x 102 cm $1300 Image by Thomas Oliver

22 October 2018 (a grand piano reign don parody) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 137 x 224 cm $2350 Image by Thomas Oliver

28 August 2018 (in modesty I composed a couplet, in shame I hid my ambition) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 59 X 61 cm $780 Image by Thomas Oliver

20 September 2018 (a dozen or so) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 61 x 51 cm $730 Image by Thomas Oliver

15 August 2018 (Morandi was an electrician and an amateur football player; he lived in the first person) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 112 x 122 cm $1500 Image by Thomas Oliver

11 April 2018 (he found himself extraneous and so made an alibi of the dark) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 76 X 91 cm $1050 Image by Thomas Oliver

18 September 2018 (rum finds a hidden violence, opens a strange menagerie) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 61 x 71 cm $860 Image by Thomas Oliver

4 May 2018 (one one two three eight nine 14 15 19 20 25 36 43 45 48 59 73 80 111 125 130 132 (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 91 x 71 cm $1025 Image by Thomas Oliver

21 June 2018 (no amount of reading and research prepared me for the marks incidental to the headline) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 137 x 112 cm $1600 Image by Thomas Oliver

8 May 2018 (Speakman spoke of a man who said he’d never say anything (2018) Acrylic paint and oil pastel on canvas 77 x 77 cm $975 Image by Thomas Oliver

11 October 2018 (time indifferent, time inadequate and unabated, time to jump in) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil on board 91 x 76 cm $1050 Image by Thomas Oliver

25 July 2018 (she covers me like Pompeii) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil on board 122 x 122 cm $1550 Image by Thomas Oliver

12 April 2018 (he resented the party’s choleric tide, rising with his desertion) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil on board 91 x 76 cm $1050 Image by Thomas Oliver

22 May 2018 (your star, sitting solo in the sky, eclipsed by a football) (2018) Acrylic paint and oil on board 102 x 102 cm $1300 Image by Thomas Oliver

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