THIS IS WHO I AM
ASPIRATIONS AND PERSISTENT INDULGENCES
Michael McWilliams Handmark 77 Salamanca Place Until Monday Price range: $2750 - $50,000
At the centre of this notable exhibition, which sold out with remarkable speed, is an almost ineffable artwork, Portrait of a Landscape. Filled with strange, alluring life this work seems to breath. Likely a self portrait of Michael McWilliams, the large human face is made of animals and plants. The mouth is a fish and skink; the ears, blue tongue lizards; and his head a chaotic explosion of native gums, flowers and birds. A twisted tree becomes a trachea and hints at a circulatory system where a black swan sits. The image is clearly the head and shoulders of a human, and much more. It’s animals, nature, and a strong statement that “this is what makes me, this is who I am”.
The strikingly realised eyes look directly at the viewer, but they are not commanding. They’re laughing. It’s a reassuring, beautiful painting, but there’s one thing that upstages it all, and it’s subtle. Around the subject’s neck, created poignantly of native Tasmanian animals, is a single strand of barbed wire. It’s a small detail in a rich work, but a critical one that overturns it, and leaves only questions: is someone, or something, choking?
This kind of exquisite, precise detail fills McWilliams’s work. A painter of exceptional skill, his work is precise, beautifully placed and constructed. McWilliams is informed by many art traditions, some old, some quite new. He has a strong grasp of what a painting is. Even in works that do not appear to be symmetrical at first glance, there is balance and structure.
McWilliams seizes a viewer’s attention and directs it with a gentle firmness. In many of the works, there are nods to issues that involve human interaction with the environment, or with animals. The work Off on a boat trip refers to the contentious issue of live exports, which McWilliams tackles by showing us the sheep, staring back at us. The staring animal, which gazes at the audience, is a strong element in all of the work.
McWilliams captures the otherness of animals, the way they are not human, but have awareness. McWilliams shows animals as they are. He clearly respects them and it resonates in his work. McWilliams lives in the natural world he paints. He loves it, he worries that it is threatened, and he wants us to see what he sees, and feel what he feels.
This affecting collection of works is soon to depart to the collections of the fortunate few who made this a sellout show. It may be the only opportunity to see it all in one place for some time.