Helen Johnson
Keeping company, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
45.7 x 61 cm
18 x 24 in
18 x 24 in
Copyright The Artist
Further images
'The first layer of this work is made up of fragments adapted from Richard Doyle's The Smoking Room at the Club (1849) along with figures drawn from an informal photograph...
"The first layer of this work is made up of fragments adapted from Richard Doyle's The Smoking Room at the Club (1849) along with figures drawn from an informal photograph of members of Australia's conservative National Party from 1974, a party that was formed to serve the needs of the farmer but increasingly serves only the needs of large-scale agribusiness and mining, and remains highly influential. The consistent thread being old white men using casual meetings to maintain their self-interest. Overlaid on this, two pairs of hands work to unravel a complex tangle. So on one register, a corrupt togetherness; on the other, a cooperative pulling-apart." - Helen Johnson, 2020