An Unconfirmed Number

REDOT FINE ART GALLERY presents

An Unconfirmed Number David Kelly Solo

3 rd August - 28 th August 2016

Gallery 1 & 2

For a high resolution, downloadable, PDF version of this catalogue, with pricing, please send us an email to info@redotgallery.com Thank you.

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Foreword The ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to present, An Unconfirmed Number, an exhibition of recent paintings by Australian artist, David Kelly. The work is the culmination of his Master of Visual Art degree through the University of South Australia and presents a powerful visual exploration of Australia’s colonial past. Developing from a residency with the Gija people of Warmun Art Centre in 2012, Kelly examines his non-Indigenous ancestry as it relates to the colonisation of Australia and the largely untold stories of the violent conflicts that marked the era. The significance of ‘place’ and his relationship to the landscapes in which he has lived and travelled has been a recurring theme in Kelly’s work over more than thirty years as a practicing artist. In this series he extends on the reference to political themes associated to place, first addressed in his ‘Tuol Sleng – silent walls’ series, related to the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.

In a similar way to that body of work, the artist presents in this new exhibition, highly charged images drawn from harrowing histories that use visual devices of beauty by contrast. Within the stark black and white lines of several canvases, sit subtle grey textures which invite closer consideration. In other works, the boldness of the

Australian forest landscape is conveyed with the burnt sienna hues of eucalyptus trunks and the scorched black texture of wattle tree bark. While used as metaphors to convey his message, Kelly avoids literal reference to the landscape, rather alluded to in gesture, texture and palette.

Drawing on experiences as a teacher and artist in South Australian Adnyamathanha and Narungga communities, Kelly has used his more recent relationship with Gija painters to share a story not often told with a non-Indigenous voice. He has set out to create what he terms a ‘memory initiative’ rather than a memorial, which promotes discussion, honest reflection and a positive view to the future. While acknowledging a difficult past, the work is equally a celebration of what transcends all human histories; the captivating qualities of the Australian landscape. These paintings provide an opportunity to reflect and consider the stories they reference, or simply to immerse oneself in the aesthetic experience of earthen forms, rich palette and dramatic composition.

In his comments on the exhibition, Dr. Ian Greig, of the National Art School, Sydney, Australia, wrote ‘(this work) effectively articulates the capacity of painting to act as a transformative event in the experience of memory’ and ‘(in it) we have a context in which painting can perform a redemptive, therapeutic engagement with the world – painting as a vehicle of transcendence’.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 3rd August and runs until Sunday 28th August 2016.

It will be attended in person by David Kelly for the official opening on Wednesday 17th August 2016 at 6:30pm.

Giorgio Pilla Director ReDot Fine Art Gallery

Left page: David Kelly in his Studio Source: © Photo Courtesy of David Kelly

Artist’s Insight A memory initiative of Indigenous massacres during ‘The Killing Times’ in the colonisation of N-E Western Australia This body of work is the practical outcome of a Master of Visual Art studio based research degree, undertaken at the University of South Australia, School of Art, Architecture and Design, in 2013-2014. The following writing and photographs reference the assessment installation at Liverpool Street Gallery, Adelaide, which comprised sculptural elements not being shown in the Singapore exhibition. Through discussion and collaborative interactions during 2015-2016, selected works of Greg Johns are being exhibited in association with the paintings, providing a unique and complimentary installation specifically for this exhibition.

Research Abstract This research explores memory initiatives through a visual art practice as a means to enhance understanding of a conflictive past, focusing on selected conflicts between Indigenous and colonial European-Australians in the Gija lands of North-East Western Australia during the early 20th century. It seeks to establish a contemporary visual discourse that recognises the historical significance of these events through the interlinked media of painting, sculpture and installation. Influenced by extensive involvement as resident artist, teacher and collaborator in this Aboriginal community, as well as in the communities of the Adnyamathanha and Narungga peoples, and by cultural links to European settlers, my work occupies a position of acknowledgement and reflection on the coming together of Aboriginal and European cultures.

The visual language of these works emanates from native Australian flora; in particular, the distinctive black bark of the acacia pycnantha as it dries on prematurely dead trunks and the smooth, white presence of selected eucalyptus species. By way of both painted and sculptural forms, the synchronous individuality and communality of these trees have been engaged as metaphors for histories and identities.

The ‘unconfirmed number’ of people affected by these events is symbolically referenced through the use of random numerals as graphic elements in the paintings.

By contrast, a specific number is represented by the nine paintings and nine sculptures, derived from a massacre account central to stories of the Gija people and shared during my artist residency in their community. The installed environment invites consideration of conflicting histories and of a history of conflict.

Artist’s reflections on the development and realisation of ‘An Unconfirmed Number’ In the process of art practice, I generally require a significant period of mental distillation before feeling able to appropriately respond to an experience of place. In some cases, work has drawn on life events and environments in which I lived and travelled more than thirty years earlier. These responses constitute the essence of memory, the quintessential elements of that experience, and so it was in reflecting on the stories of ‘The Killing Times’ in the Kimberley. A period of over twelve months elapsed between returning from my residency with the Gija people of N-E Western Australia and the development of some clarity about how best to respond to that experience through my visual art practice. Much of this distillation process took place while walking in the native bushland surrounding my home and studio, located in the Adelaide Hills (part of the Mt Lofty Ranges) in South Australia.

Several species of the wattle trees (acacia) indigenous to the Mt Lofty Ranges (especially acacia pycnantha) took on another form during these extended walks of contemplation, as their presence amidst the dominant blue gum (eucalyptus leucoxylon) forest of the area came to be a poignant metaphor. Clustered together in sparse groups, these prematurely dead, black trunks stand much like Giacometti figures in a landscape dominated by the stately, well-established and flourishing white eucalypts, each a unique individual by shape, size and placement but, equally, an homogenous community.

Left Page: An Unconfirmed Numbers - Crit Examination Show at Liverpool Street Gallery, Adelaide Source: © Photo Courtesy of David Kelly

In the early stages of drawing and experiments with various media, this landscape became the starting point for the gradual emergence of symbolic forms. Throughout the period of developing the imagery, attribution of metaphoric meaning to the various elements of the bushland evolved.

The initial response to the stark, dead acacia trunks was one of isolation. They appeared as burial totems, symbols singularly connected with death. In the process of painting, walking, contemplating and refining the consideration of this source, the symbolism took on a more holistic, inclusive quality. The simplicity of the black and white trunks gave way to complexities of colour and texture. The notion of death became inextricably linked to life, personified in the new season’s growth.

The metaphors became less divisive and more about a community made up of rich diversity and interdependence. A memory initiative began to emerge, more than a memorialisation; a broad acknowledgement of historical complexities rather than a narrow focus on specific loss.

From an early stage of the research, numbers emerged in readings and reflections.

Accounts of atrocities cited unconfirmed and contradictory numbers of victims and there was generally a complete absence of names. After consideration of numbers in the context of these accounts, there appeared a fascinating dichotomy. The definitive, precise nature of numbering systems was thrown into sharp contrast against the ambiguity of their application to these stories of human loss. The numbers fail to define the stories or to express the narrative within. Rather than providing accuracy and clarity, numbers are the subject of dispute, deflecting and confusing in a way which

is entirely contrary to their purpose. Noticing this contradiction, I began to work with numbers in antithetic guise, both as highly specific and disputative. The number ‘nine’ emerged as the number to which I attached definition, the symmetry of nine acacia trunks and nine canvases of identical proportion reflecting the number of dead cited in local accounts of both the Mistake Creek and Bedford Downs massacres. The inclusion of these formal communication and record-keeping symbols, against a backdrop of organic, earthen and abstracted forms, provides a metaphoric introduction to the contrasting protagonists and contested histories.

Although referential and symbolic, the works of this series are equally an emotional, reflexive response to the personification of a difficult history.

Bottom: An Unconfirmed Numbers - Crit Examination Show at Liverpool Street Gallery, Adelaide Source: © Photo Courtesy of David Kelly

“Any story will vary according to the narrator, but the fundamental truth should never be lost in the telling.

In a history of conflict, there exist deeply conflicting interpretations of that history.

Somewhere amidst the stories is a truth.

It’s a truth of the past that needs to be identified and acknowledged, so it might inform a better future.”

Greg Johns & David Kelly

Left Page: David Kelly Taking a Brief Moment to Reflect During Installation of the Shows Source: © Photo Courtesy of ReDot Fine Art Gallery

David KELLY B.Ed. Sec. Art MVA. Born 1959, Australia.

David Kelly has been working as an artist and teacher in Australia and South-East Asia since the early 1980s. His work features in private collections throughout Asia, Europe, Australia, USA and South America, as well as corporate, consular and national collections. He is represented by ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore, where he is also Education Coordinator, providing Australian art educational outreach programs to school and interest groups.

Since July 2016 his studio has been based primarily in Singapore and part-time in Adelaide, South Australia. He is a graduate of the University of South Australia, School of Art, Architecture and Design – Bachelor of Education (Secondary Art) and Master of Visual Art – where he has also been a painting and drawing studio tutor. “… the diverse environments in which I have lived and travelled provide the inspiration for my work, drawing on distilled memories to capture something of their essence. An emotion related to a place and time rather than a recreation of physical reality. The results of nature’s own creative and degenerative processes. The tactile and visual qualities of weathered surfaces and the stories they tell. A personal response to events of that place. Dilapidated shearing sheds behind my old South Australian farm house, walls of Cambodia’s Angkor and Tuol Sleng prison museum, overgrown ruins of Argentina’s Missiones and seasonal change of the ubiquitous eucalypts surrounding my home studio.

The process of all that we are and do, returning to the earth, also seen in the rocky outcrops of Arkaroola and the Kimberley, bleached coastlines of Yorke Peninsula and twisting sungai of Borneo. All these life experiences are drawn together by the common thread of aged textures, deeply weathered surfaces and rich colours of the earth. The outcomes are themselves products of elemental processes, each with their own story, each a unique entity…”

Awards 2008 Winner – Heysen Prize for Interpretation of Place - Hahndorf Academy, Hahndorf,

SA, Australia.

Collections National Gallery, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Australian High Commission, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

BHP Billiton, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Santos, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Pinsent Masons MPillay LLP, Singapore.

Private Collections in Australia, South East Asia, Europe, USA and South America.

Solo Exhibitions 2015

2013 2011

2010 2008

2007 2005 2004 2003

An Unconfirmed Number - University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA; Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Layers of Time - ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore.

Essence of Eucalypt - Australian High Commission Atrium, Singapore (Represented by ReDot Fine Art Gallery).

Tuol Sleng – silent walls - eye2eye Fine Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Eucalyptus - eye2eye Fine Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Landmarks - Santos Centre, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Recent Works - Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Earthworks - Australian High Commission, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Sungai - Alliance Francaise de Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Horizons - Australian High Commission, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Joint Exhibitions 2016 2013 2012

An Unconfirmed Number – with Greg Johns - ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore.

Confronted – with Rita Hall - Light Square Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Warrangarim [Gija: meeting] – with Gordon Barney - Cross Cultural Art Exchange (CCAE), Darwin, NT, Australia.

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 Celebrating Australian Creativity in Singapore - Australian High Commission

Atrium, Singapore (Represented by ReDot Fine Art Gallery).

2012 Heysen Prize for Interpretation of Place - Hahndorf Academy, Hahndorf, SA, Australia.

2011 Intangibles in Terra Australis - Flinders University Art Museum (FAUM), Adelaide,

SA, Australia.

2010 Director’s Exhibition - The Blake Society, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

The Waterhouse – Selected Works - National Archives of Australia, Canberra,

ACT, Australia.

The Waterhouse - South Australian Museum, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Intangibles in Terra Australis - Sala kubo-kutxa Aretoa, San Sebastian, Spain [ArtsSA].

The Heysen Trail Exhibition - Adelaide Festival of Arts Fringe, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

2009 Paddington Art Prize - Sydney, NSW, Australia.

City of Albany Art Prize - Albany, WA, Australia.

2008 Redland Art Award - Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

City of Albany Art Prize - Albany, WA, Australia.

Macquarie Fine Art Exhibition – Invited Artists - Sponsored by Macquarie Bank,

Sydney, NSW, Australia.

2007 The Waterhouse - South Australian Museum, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

2005 Boat - EmpireArt Gallery (at Empire Hotel and Country Club), Bandar Seri

Begawan, Brunei.

2004 Artiade 2004 – Visual Arts Olympics - Tsalapatas Exhibition Space Volos, Athens, Greece.

Art Forum – Brunei - National Gallery, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Citibank Exhibition - Li Gong Exhibition Space, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Local Colour - Empire Hotel and Country Club, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

2003 Inaugural Exhibition - Rainforest Gallery, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

1988 Culture works – senior student workshop participants and tutors - University of

Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina.

Workshop Exhibition - Mendoza, Argentina.

Residencies Warmun Art Centre, Turkey Creek, WA, Australia (From 8th April – 7th May 2012).

Teaching 1982 – 1998

1998 – 2005

2014 – 2015

Visual Art Teacher, Coordinator and SACE Moderator - South Australian Area and Secondary Schools.

Visual Art Teacher and Deputy Principal - Jerudong International School, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Lecturer – Painting and Drawing – School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Installation ‘Two Stories’ and ‘An Unconfirmed Number’ Source: © Photo Courtesy of ReDot Fine Art Gallery

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #1 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511001

The three black on white canvases are inspired directly by the blackened, dead trunks of juvenile golden wattle. Often growing for no more than ten years, the trees take on a brittle, flaking texture and in the competition for sustenance from the dry forest floor, die in large numbers. The wood of these trees is very hard and remains for many years after death, which leaves large numbers of the trees standing in small groups and individually, resilient to the decay which accounts for the falling and decomposition of other species. This painting has sought to capture some of the starkness of these trunks, their simultaneous strength and frailty, their individuality and communality, with the emphasis on two dominant trunks.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #2 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511002

With the introduction of selected colours other than black and white, the character of the Australian bush is introduced more literally. There exists a particular quality during the dry, hot summer months when walking through these eucalyptus dominated forests. Underfoot is a constant crack of twigs and old leaves and oozing gum (sap) blistering on the trunks of wattles. This painting suggests something of the density of these places, their distance and close proximity all at once while walking. What are essentially perpendicular compositions on the vertical and horizontal, speak of the upward thrust these trunks make in their search for light, straight, tall and punctuated with wildly organic secondary growth in all directions. Within the dark shadows are suggestions of a distant horizon, a place beyond, both beautiful and faintly menacing.

The arbitrary numbers in uniform placement reference the human incursion onto this landscape and the unconfirmed numbers of victims in the European colonisation.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #3 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511003

This painting provides a link between the two less complex black on white images and the emergence of the more complete chapters of the story. There is in a sense, a cycle, moving from white as depicted in the blank canvas, through progressively more laden paintings to the entirely black canvas. This is the nexus: the point where the simplicity of the black lines begins to give way to subtle movements of form. The dominance of the vertical is challenged by areas of textural grey and suggestions of depth. What may have been interpreted in the other black on white images as stark and without compromise, begins to break into a questioning entity. All is perhaps not entirely as it first seems. The initial blunt and confronting experience of walking into the bush begins to provide something else. Subtleties emerge. Preconceptions are challenged.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #4 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511004

The black canvas is open to a variety of interpretations. It may be an end or a beginning.

It is certainly far more than simply black. Its texture and variation through shades of dark grey, coupled with positive and negative transitions of linear division also speak of there being far more to know than what we perceive in a cursory first glance. The number ‘9’ is definitive. The only canvas with a single digit, making reference to the number of Mistake Creek Massacre victims as recounted by Gija elder, Gordon Barney, with whom David Kelly painted and exhibited in 2012. This constitutes a definitive number as contrasted against the myriad unconfirmed numbers and reports in various sources. Of course all numbers now remain contested, but the statement of ‘9’ is that there is, somewhere, a truth. These events did take place and should be acknowledged as part of contemporary Australia’s history.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #5 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511005

This painting extends on the building of layers, both literally and metaphorically. The visual depth is extended, taking the viewer further into the painting, the story, and the complexities of the bush. Texture, colour and line make suggestions of eucalyptus trunks and bark, age weathered surfaces and fresh scars. Horizontal lines are also reminiscent of Australian Indigenous initiation and identity scars traditionally incised across the chest. Again, the numbers representing the unconfirmed reports of victims, are placed in a formal grid as representation of European influence on the organic, preexisting environment and inhabitants.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #6 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511006

The most minimal of the series, this work is the symbolic first mark on the canvas.

While still maintaining a dominance of negative space, the lines are stark, bold and pure. The suggestion is of harmonious coexistence. In each of the three black on white images the intention is to establish strong contrast. There is a metaphoric suggestion of things being ‘black and white’, clearly defined, but with soft, shadowy greys already suggesting that this is not the case. There is more to be known.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #7 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511007

As with the other multi-colour images, this painting seeks to show the complexity of these stories through metaphoric reference to the Australian natural environment.

The layering of dark on light and light on dark provides an introduction to the depth of the later paintings, drawing together line, colour and texture in balance. There remain areas of pristine white. This is the case in all the works of the series, providing a level of contrast against black lines and shapes which allows the subtlety of earthen colours to be seen in all their richness. The dominant vertical black lines in this work also makes reference to the human form, integrated in the environment, tall, strong and part of a harmonious community.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #8 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511008

Of the paintings that combine all colours used in the series, this is the most simple and fundamentally balanced. There is a limit to the fine linear sections and layered depth, being the first introduction of colour beyond the black on white. It points towards the complexity of later images but is still dominated by large, bold shapes and a limited palette. Though the numbers make their appearance, they are not yet overt and it contains the greatest concentration of what is essentially unmarked black paint.

David KELLY An Unconfirmed Number #9 Oil & Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 150cm DK201511009

In isolation, a blank canvas is open to limitless interpretation. This may well be the intention of an artist presenting such a work and without any context in which to ‘read’ the work. The inclusion of a blank canvas in this series is symbolic in a number of ways, as well as playing an important role in the aesthetic experience of the work.

Throughout the research David was conscious of the need for balance in interpreting stories, reports and opinions about such an emotive and divisive issue. It emerged that the use of black and white served as an appropriate visual tool in establishing that balance by identifying the extremes between which balance needed to be achieved.

Not necessarily by reference to the commonly used, if not politically correct terms, to describe Australian Indigenous and European colonists in colloquial terms of their race. The use of black and white in each painting was something of a revelation for David in his painting practice as he had used neither with any regularity before. When he had, he was always struck by the drama they create in an image. A real visual power.

While always preferring black and white photography, and drawing with black pastel, David had rarely used the combination with paint. In doing so he found a new visual language with which he felt great liberty. Against the extremes of black and white, colour took on new vibrancy and subtlety. The white canvas also references what was described by European authorities in their claiming of Australia as ‘Terra Nullius’.

The claim was that the land was empty. No recognition was given to the existence of Indigenous Australians in any capacity other than or greater than wildlife. It remains one of the great injustices of Empire. Perhaps most importantly, the ’blank canvas’ is a term which suggests limitless possibilities. A future which is unknown but full of possibilities. In that context, perhaps the blank canvas is both the beginning and the end. The introduction and the closing remark.

David Kelly’s Show at Liverpool Street Gallery

“The evident technical virtuosity does not overwhelm or distract from the aim of the paintings. The technique provides a foundation for the work rather than being the work, reflecting the effective application of process as a means to an end rather than the end itself.”

Source: © Photos Courtesy of David Kelly

Dr. Ian Greig The National Art School, Sydney, Australia

David Kelly Working in his Studio

Source: © Photos Courtesy of David Kelly

David Kelly Playing the Didgeridoo in Singapore, 2015 Source: Š Photo Courtesy of David Kelly

This work has drawn from many sources; historical, visual, political, cultural and environmental, but most importantly, personal.

It is my personal response to a complex story.

But the source can be traced to one experience in particular.

The privilege and pleasure of painting and exhibiting with Gija elder, Gordon Barney. This quietly spoken stock-man, painter, friend and didgeridoo man, shared much of what inspired this work, and it’s to him I dedicate the paintings of this exhibition and of whom I think whenever I play this spiritual instrument.

In this instance, the spontaneous musical sharing with my son has added another layer to a story that must be told and not forgotten.

David Kelly 2016

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