work / FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 2024
Fruit and Vegetables 2024
Acrylic on individual boards
168cm x 238cm
Over the past decade I have been working and reworking the individual painted panels in Fruit and Vegetables. It’s not unusual for my works/projects to take many years to develop, or for me to continually return to projects to expand or develop further. Over time, this work has expanded, shrunk and at one point, some of these panels morphed into a separate project titled The Butcher Shop from 2017. Recently, I’ve been reworking and rearranging many of the remaining panels into various configurations on the studio wall - uninstalling, then re-installing, over and over again.
The process of developing the work to this point was helped last year when I was commissioned to produce an artwork for an 18-meter-wide digital billboard using similar forms, titled Roadside Fruit Stand. This was a work seen across a number of billboards around regional Victoria during 2023, including along the Princes Freeway between Melbourne and Geelong. The intention with this work was to have these forms continually change order over time, giving the billboard a dynamic, kinetic quality.
It was this modular element that interested me - the idea that an artwork does not necessarily need to be a static thing, that it could be changeable or at least reordered into different configurations – perhaps each time is it reinstalled. This concept was integrated into this painting, and like the digital artwork, these painted panels have that same potential to be reordered. Fruit and Vegetables was completed this year when I felt completely satisfied that the conceptual framework that revolves around this modular idea was fully resolved.
The modular aspect inherent in the work, mirrors the actual intention of the original signs seen in green grocers and at roadside farmers markets. Placed up at the beginning of the day then taken down again at the end of the day, only to be placed in different locations with new prices the next day. The painterly surfaces of these panels reflect a tangible sense of usage over time and are a response to the dog-eared edges of the actual signs seen in the marketplace.
Fruit and Vegetables is a finalist in the 2024 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize
Saturday 10 August to Sunday 3 November 2024
The 2024 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize continues a long tradition of acquisitive award exhibitions presented by the Gallery, through which the permanent collection has grown substantially. The first painting prize—the Geelong Centenary Art Competition—was held in 1938, and in the more than 80 years since, the Gallery has awarded acquisitive prizes variously for paintings, watercolours and prints, generously sponsored by individuals, philanthropic and corporate supporters committed to contemporary art.
Paintings acquired from previous prizes are among the most significant works in the Gallery’s collection, including works by Peter Booth (1972), Lesley Dumbrell (1979), Richard Larter (1980), John Nixon (1996), Janenne Eaton (1998), Ann Thomson (2002), Kate Beynon (2016) and Andrew Browne (2018).
The 2024 finalists are Peter Atkins, Stephen Benwell, Natasha Bieniek, Seth Birchall, Maggie Brink, Johnathon Bush, Eleanor Louise Butt, Fernando do Campo, Ella Dunn, David Egan, Louise Gresswell, dana harris, Euan Heng, Duain Kelaart, Dane Lovett, Travis MacDonald, Viv Miller, Jan Murray, John Pastoriza-Pinol, Rosslynd Piggott, Kenny Pittock, Steven Rendall, Rachael Robb, Huseyin Sami, Georgia Spain, Ebony Truscott, Kate Vassallo, Trevor Vickers, Jake Walker, Amber Wallis and Louise Weaver.
Fruit and Vegetables 2024
modular variations
Roadside Fruit Stand 2023
18-meter-long Billboard
Princes Freeway between Melbourne and Geelong and other sites across Regional Victoria
Commissioned through as part of INTOmission
Link here for more details
Below: Collected reference forms for Fruit and Vegetables
