Joseph Mcglennon: Skyestags

Exemplum-Virtutis The photographs of Joseph McGlennon One of the myriad elements that imbue a subject with beauty is its inherent fragility.

Nothing is immune from the inexorable change that time brings, all things must pass as the saying goes, the only variable being how long that change might take. Change can of course use its powers for good or for evil or perhaps a Byzantine blend of the two, but at its heart is loss. When I look back over the work of Joseph McGlennon I see a constantly recurring theme, the fragility of beauty and experience and his subsequent endeavour to remember and preserve what once was. Not for nostalgia’s sake, we all know there’s no future in that but rather in respect of how loss defines us. The Strange Voyage series is the quintessential view of the first white settlers to arrive in Australia, not necessarily in what they were looking at but rather in what they saw.

With McGlennon’s Thylacine 1936, Tasmanian Tiger Series there is depicted the more tangible loss/extinction of an entire species. Which brings us to Skystags, a new and excitingly powerful body of work yet still richly evocative of loss and displacement and for more than one reason as well.

McGlennon came out to Australia with his parents from Glasgow in Scotland when he was a boy. The first Scottish settlers arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, including three of the first six Governors of New South Wales.(1) According to the 2011 Australian census 1,792,600 people claimed Scottish ancestry, the fourth most commonly nominated ancestry and representing over 8.9% of the total population of Australia.(2) Leaving your birthplace behind rarely means forgetting it as well and the Scots are as proud of their ancestry as any. Indeed walking into McGlennon’s childhood home in Adelaide, South Australia was like stepping into a time warped, Scottish-annexed state where the tyranny of distance had been erased, vast oceans crossed and you found yourself standing on highland ground. All around we’re mementos of the old country, paintings, maps and as matter of fact; biscuit tins bearing very familiar Scottish imagery.

One of those tins bore the image of Edward Landseer’s painting The Monarch of the Glen.

Landseer although born in London is consistently associated with Scotland, visiting the highlands on a number of occasions culminating in this instance in the above painting in 1851. Landseer’s use of animals often in majestic landscapes and portraying inspiring human qualities had a great resonance for people of the Victorian age. He became a virtual court painter to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert creating much loved paintings of the royal animals and Victoria herself.

There is indeed an interesting convergence of personalities, discoveries and beliefs in the 19th century that certainly imbued Landseer’s paintings with a powerful and encompassing Zeitgeist. Later in the century Charles Darwin was to publish one of his seminal works The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in which he discussed the concept of genetically determined aspects of behaviour by tracing the animal origins of human characteristics. It has been theorised that to avoid unsettling the Victorian sensibilities he cannily empathised not how humans displayed “animal characteristics” but rather how animals could display “human characteristics”. Thus playing into, to a degree the Victorian obsession with artworks of animals portraying examples of heroic and laudable human qualities, so very exemplum-virtutis and most certainly as depicted in such sentimentalist but nonetheless admirable works as The Monarch of the Glen.

Artworks such as this went on to be touchstones for time, place and county especially for those across distant oceans, full to the brim with memories of a loved country left behind these are artifacts imbued with the power of what was and not loved and cherished any less despite their mass production and ubiquity.

It is often said that in our post-post-post modern times that all we have left in art is irony, that “truth” is a vague cloud in a constant state of flux without form or consistency and in our steel-edged cynicism there is nothing left to believe in.

One of the great and eternal qualities of art is that it has, does and will continue to take what we think we know so well and find new, intriguing and engaging ways to show it to us again.

McGlennon has made a series of exquisitely beautiful and engrossing artworks that bear witness to his origins while also wrapping us in its sumptuous, majestic arms. Spend time with these works, stand at a distance and admire their regal power, stand close and dwell upon the wonder of these animals or move across the peaks, rises and plains that are displayed in the most luxurious detail, they will richly reward you.

Mark Kimber, 2015 Studio head of Photography and New Media South Australian School of Art University of South Australia

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 1, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 +2 AP 100 x 133 cm 140 x 187 cm

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 2, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 +2 AP 100 x 128 cm 140 x 175 cm

Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 3, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 +2 AP 100 x 125 cm 140 x 174 cm

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 4, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 + 2AP 100 x 111 cm 140 x 155 cm

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 5, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 + 2AP 100 x 128 cm 140 x 180 cm

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 6, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 + 2AP 100 x 133 cm 140 x 187 cm

Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 7, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 + 2AP 100 x 134 cm 140 x 187 cm

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Joseph McGlennon Skyestag 8, 2015 giclee digital print on archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper edition of 8 + 2AP 100 x 128 cm 140 x 175 cm

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JOSEPH MCGLENNON Lives and works Singapore & Sydney Education Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Adelaide University of South Australia Diploma of Education from Adelaide University of South Australia Solo Exhibitions 2015 Skyestags, Michael Reid, Sydney and Berlin 2014 Strange Voyage at Customs House, Michael Reid 2013 Thylacine 1936, Michael Reid, Berlin, Sydney 2012 Troopers, Michael Reid, Sydney 2011 Strange Voyage, Michael Reid, Sydney Selected Group Exhibitions 2015 Photo London 2015 Wall power: Significant Contemporary Australian photography and photomedia, Michael Reid, Sydney 2014 From the colonial to the personal, Peter Walker Fine Art in conjunction with Michael Reid, Adelaide 2013 Australian Landscape: Present in the Now, Michael Reid, Berlin 2012 Murr-ma – Uncovering Aboriginal and Contemporary Australian Art, Michael Reid Berlin Collections Australian National Gallery, Canberra Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo Newcastle Art Gallery Art Gallery of South Australia Prizes 2011 Doug Moran Photographic Prize finalist 2012 Doug Moran Photographic Prize finalist 2012 Bowness Photography Prize finalist

Published to coincide with: Joseph McGlennon, Skyestags June 2015 Michael Reid Sydney Michael Reid Berlin

Contact Michael Reid Sydney 44 Roslyn Gardens, Elizabeth Bay, NSW 2011 +61 2 8353 3500 Michael Reid Berlin AckerstraĂ&#x;e 163, D-10115 Berlin, Germany +49 (0) 175 62 65 100 info@michaelreid.com.au michaelreid.com.au

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