thoughts on 'bullshit' (cont.).

Andy's preoccupation with versions of abstract expressionist work made from about 2005 until the painting of bullshit in 2006 evidence the impact the European war sites and his disdain for the hypocritical terrain of that other cross laden site - Christianity - had on his painting in this period.

The large canvas he begun bullshit on was probably intimidating, especially as it may well have been intended as the culmination of this preoccupation and previous work. Even the amount of paint needed for such a large canvas was a constraint, though less so than the pressure to do it justice.

It's hard to tell but it looks as though there was minimal priming, then a pretty general wash over the entire canvas with an industrial yellow/green lime wash Melony had left over from house painting. Then tape was used to stencil and paint in a few large white crosses, then red and blue, in oil paint. With drying time this would probably have been over some days. Some of the tape remains on the canvas in areas indicating deliberate or technical 'mistakes'. Perhaps this is when the shift began, days of meticulous labour undone simply removing a line of tape, or the increasing doubt of successfully achieving such a large work, even doubt about the whole subject and approach. Perhaps Andy started to wonder if the idea was just a bland repetition of ubiquitous icons/symbols rather than the haunted shock he had envisaged and hoped the painting might evoke.

At some stage the whole thing changed. Andy's rebellious doppelgänger refused to allow the charade to continue. He hurled everything at it from then on. There was enough space for multiple narratives, an entire ecosystem of symbols, shapes, line, colours, textures and emotions. Here we have the quintessential Andrew.

The ways he layered and laid paint down is seductive, revelling in whatever materials and tools are employed, even gravity. There is a cacophony of composition and intent running riot from edge to edge of the canvas. The work is alive with visions and revisions. Crosses, vertical and horizontal lines and rectangles, skeletons, skulls, a swastika, an upside down American flag, and a multitude of details all compete for visibility as the viewer is drawn into trying to make sense of chaos... is that a dead snake or goanna draped over the central red cross, a yellow tulip just above and behind it? The small tall white rectangles either side of centre at the bottom of the frame with their aqua and pink inserts hold such grace and poetry, gestural and featherlike amongst the wider chaos and dismemberment of the symbolic above and around them. 

The work is simultaneously playful and sinister. By the time it was completed I don't think it was meant to 'make sense', by then it had become much more. It is certainly 'about' the Western military/industrial complex and a reaction to the horrors of war and dogma, but also 'taking the piss' at the commercial art world and taking life too seriously.

I'm sure it was weeks, probably months in the making, through many iterations and changes becoming a metanarrative and manifestation of experiences, beliefs, thoughts and feelings. It spoke of Andrew probably more than any other work in the exhibition.

Thoughts on some work from' the sacred and the profane'.

the bullshit painting - quintessentially Andy

Undoubtedly a centrepiece of Andy's retrospective, by far the largest painting in the show, the untitled work family refer to as the bullshit painting stands amongst surviving paintings as most quintessentially Andrew. It more fully articulates his artistic and philosophical concerns and experiences than any other piece as singular work. It is poignant, angry, ironic and humorous, complex, forthright and contains fragments of grace that relieve its relentless truth.

My theory - and this is one of the things I love about Andy's paintings, whether dense, chaotic, or minimalist and atmospheric, his work is open to infinite readings and indeed nurtures their creation. My theory on the bullshit painting is that it was originally intended to become a simple, austere work responding to the Arnhem war cemetery in Holland visited as a child, perhaps something like this...

or this...

white crosses in an expanse receding endlessly, into a vague distance. My brother Stephen told me a story about Andrew as a child in Holland and his reactions to visiting the war cemeteries there at 11or 12 years of age, especially at Arnhem. Stephen says he was a real little Dutch kid, top of his class in Dutch and mad about everything Dutch, he was also deeply affected by the wargraves. Sketches, notes and paintings Andrew made reflect this.

Thanks Andy - all ways

Opening night @ The Cannery, Esperance - 'the sacred and the profane'.

'The bullshit painting' from the exhibition: 180 x 120cm, oil, acrylic, lime wash and pencil on canvas, untitled 2006.

Biography of Andy for the retrospective 'the sacred and the profane'

“My love of painting was initially sparked by visiting museums in the Netherlands as a child. The relentless passion of Van Gogh in particular. I dabbled with my own painting in my twenties but it was not until after I moved to Esperance that I began to work regularly.

The forms and light here are of continuous fascination to me. Space, the hum of atmosphere, the affirmation and negation of shoreline and horizon pose questions that prod the artist towards investigation and meditation.” 

(Andrew Hyde, from Artist’s Statement for group ex’n Bush to Beach Bohemians with Dewi Hyde and Larry Youngson, Esperance, January 2008.)

“wake up, the rest will settle, the day will be the poem” (Andrew Hyde, 30 April, 2008.)

Visual artist, intellectual, writer,  philosopher, poet and fisherman - Andy was a brilliant, highly original thinker whose insight and imagination transcended dogma and limitations.

It is easy to understand his great love for children, sharing the curiosity and playful creativity typical of the emerging child, less straightforward to understand his complicated life and death. These are inextricably linked to being the youngest in a family of nine children and himself ‘losing’ a daughter when he was just 18 years old and still at school. It was a rarely mentioned trauma that affected him deeply for the rest of his life.

Andrew was always a very funny person, hilarious when in good form, and this was obvious in much of his writing and visual expression as well as social relations. He wrote a poem for a close Melbourne friend when he heard he had died that illustrates the persistence of this humour, even in such sadness.

there’s some doubt as to the truth of this

but the rumour is a piano fell right on top of his head

what a melbourne tram‘s rail and steel

couldn’t manage a needle could. and so he’s dead.

is he gone he was always playing these tricks?

This is a little how I felt first arriving at Andy’s house in response to a message that he was dead on the morning after. This poem was in his old typewriter on his desk in ‘the blue room’, his study. Was he gone? His humour remains in many works, especially sketches and cartoons he enjoyed making with and for children, notably the Charlie’s Alphabet series and many of his short stories.

His was a restless spirit that blazed like a meteor through the many passions and experiences he lived, mostly marginalised for various reasons yet enduring with breathtaking intensity, integrity and acuity.

His restlessness fuelled his curiosity and although well schooled in Australia and Holland Andrew never seriously pursued tertiary education. He was an autodidact who preferred to read, research, develop and practise his skills as interest directed and alongside chosen peers. He was a prolific and perspicacious reader both for pleasure and learning and this was foundational in his remarkable critical thinking, perceptions, and self expression.

These shone brightly in his paintings and poems. Poetry and visual art were lifelong obsessions and Andrew developed unique languages in these forms. Diverse in style, media, technique and subject matter, his oeuvre taken as a whole is an incredibly articulate, powerful and elegant expression, a valuable life’s work. Only in gathering the material for this exhibition am I fully able to appreciate this, until now much of it was scattered work and incomplete memories. 

 The complicated nexus of addiction and self doubt also prevented Andrew from realising this and ‘success’ as a writer and artist - the kind of success that may have allowed him a more comfortable life and unrestricted access to tools and materials to produce work. His outsider status did however suit his identity and allowed him to maintain his fierce independence of thought and expression. Towards the end of his life anxiety, poverty and self doubt tormented him but not even these extinguished his creative and intellectual spirit. An accidental overdose early in the evening of February 14, 2010 did.

“One thought recurs: death has brought Andrew the dignity that was his due in life too - a dignity he sometimes denied himself, other times radiated.” (Stephen Hyde, delivered at Andrew’s funeral service, Esperance, 2010.)

His work however persists, his gift to us. A poem Andrew wrote on January 18, 2001 could be about this gift, about Andy, although entitled “D.H. (for 3 brothers)”.

he accesses beauty

with the compass of his passions;

the sharp blue sky

might irradiate the (his) day,

deflecting some disappointments,

& anointing plans,

that in the fading light

become dreams.

like silence a sound slowly revealed

like the murmur of a distant ship

or the voices in a photograph

these dreams outline

precise maps of possibility.

  

Poster for Andy's show, thanks Susi and Lizzie

Graphic Design - Lizzie Hyde