Pneumatophores Aaron Butt 4 August - 22 August, 2021
Following his previous exhibition Foreign Language at Jan Manton Gallery in 2020, Aaron Butt’s latest exhibition Pneumatophores chronicles the moment Australian artist Ian Fairweather (1891-1974) landed on Rote Island, Indonesia, after his 16-day raft journey in 1952. Fairweather was held by the Indonesian authorities under suspicion of being a spy, but was permitted to walk the island under supervision. In response to this event, Butt has painted a series of works which give images to this imageless experience. Through these works, viewers have the opportunity to explore this beautiful yet isolating landscape as Fairweather once might have done. Accompanying this series is a group of works depicting views from Butt’s local area, including Bribie Island, Sandstone Point and Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), as well as Northern New South Wales. These scenes as well as the surfaces they are painted on were collected during walks and short trips in the area, many due to travel restrictions. The use of found objects alludes to Fairweather’s use of humble materials as well as Butt’s investment in both the image and the object, therefore expanding the way in which the artwork can be engaged with. In undertaking these explorations, Butt also acts as a witness to the beauty and diversity of Australia’s east coast, while intimately exploring themes of isolation which hold particular poignancy during this time. Current restrictions have afforded Butt the unique opportunity to look more intimately at his surrounding environment and appreciate the timelessness of these local landscapes. The artist respectfully acknowledges the Djindubari, Gubbi Gubbi, Ningy Ningy, Ngugi and Bundjalung people as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the works in the exhibition were made and depict.
Tangalooma 2021 Oil on canvas, 121.5 x 181.5cm $5,500
Rote 7 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Rote 3 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Rote 2 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Rote 1 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Rote 9 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Rote 10 2020 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm $2,900
Central Desert 2021 Oil on vinyl, 18 x 13cm $500
Babi 2020 Oil on board, 19 x 25cm $900
Sandstone Point 1 2020 Oil on board, 29 x 42.5cm $900
Sandstone Point 2 2021 Oil on board, 30.5 x 40.5 cm $900
Honeymoon Bay 2021 Acrylic on board, 18.5 x 35cm $700
Towards Redcliffe 2020 Oil on board, 22.5 x 30cm $700
Lake (Mulgumpin) 2021 Oil on wooden box, 8.5 x 28.5cm $500
Mulgumpin (Headland) 2021 Oil on board, 13 x 27.5cm $800
Ningi Creek 2021 Oil on canvas, 60 x 30cm $1,200
White Patch 2021 Oil on canvas, 51.5 x 60cm $1,900
Bongaree 2021 Oil on board in vintage frame, 45.5 x 25cm $1,500
Sandstone Point (pink) 2021 Oil on canvas, 40 x 50cm $1,200
Godwin 2020 Oil on board, 20.5 x 24.5cm $700
Sandstone Point Fish Trap 2020 Oil on canvas, 30 x 40cm $1,100
Sandstone Point (Grey) 2020 Oil on canvas, 40 x 80cm $1800
B.T: Can you please tell me a bit about the exhibition? A.B: The exhibition is called Pneumatophores, which are the breathing apparatuses of mangrove trees. It reflects the coastal content and also sounds like ‘new metaphors’, which is fitting. The show begins with when Ian Fairweather lands on Rote Island in Indonesia after his 16 day raft journey in 1952. He was held by the Indonesian authorities under suspicion of being a spy, but interestingly he was allowed to take walks around the island so long as he was supervised. So it flows on directly from my last exhibition at Jan Manton Gallery Foreign Language, but navigates the captivity and containment rather than the journeying and freedom. B.T: I noticed there are works that contain images of your local area (Bribie Island, Sandstone Point, Mulgumpin/Moreton Island). How do these relate? A.B: My exhibitions seem to always begin with these grand kinds of narratives based on a single distiguished person (usually an artist) and then I gradually project my own experiences onto these. Being confined to an area physically last year seemed to make me want to paint en plein air or from photographs I’ve taken and really explore the environment I live in. B.T: So you’re saying that your experience is similar to that of Fairweather’s after the raft journey? A.B: No, Fairweather lived a life of extremes up until he moved to Bribie Island, whereas I live a quiet suburban life. But the idea of being contained, with what we’ve just been through with covid-19, as well as an island as a container is something that I can relate to in my own way; Rote and Bribie Island are both beautiful places to have to stay put, so it’s got to do with gratitude of your locality in the face of something bad. I like the idea of an island as the opposite as an oasis in the desert, there is something fruitful and giving to an island but that also creates a limit. B.T: Have you been to Rote Island? A.B: I haven’t. But photography is the closest thing we have to a time machine; I like that you can bridge space and time efficiently with photography. There wouldn’t be any images of Fairweather’s raft journey so I’m giving images to a written/oral
experience in the form of a reenactment. The views you see Fairweather might have looked right at, or not seen at all. We’ll never know. B.T: There is an impressionistic element to this exhibition that I haven’t seen in any previous exhibitions. A.B: When I was young I was trained in impressionistic beachscapes by Mark Salta, whose teacher was Dale Marsh (who was friends with Fairweather), and Marsh was tutored as a boy by Vida Lahey. So the only formal training I’ve had in painting is in this area and it has come back strongly. My mentor in university, Daniel Mafe, said that your practice undergoes ten year cycles. So I feel like I’ve returned to the beginning but just a little wiser. The Raft Journey series was the start of this back to basics kind of approach with the black and white paint. B.T: Another thing that’s different and related to the impressionistic dimension is colour, which you haven’t used much until now. A.B: Yes, there is a lot of colour in this exhibition. I felt like I had achieved everything I wanted to in black and white and now it was time to challenge myself with something new, like en plein air painting and exploring different pigments. And it wouldn’t seem right to paint such a colourful place such as Indonesia or Mulgumpin in greyscale. I’m also intrigued by the creation of depth with colour. B.T: Some of the paintings do have a strange spatial quality. Can you tell me a bit about that? A.B: Yes, so my main goal I guess in these paintings was to establish a strong connection between the foreground and background. I wanted viewers to feel like they could walk through the image which I would then interrupt in some way with texture or planes of colour. This was the main idea of the group exhibition Look At / Look Through at the Byron School of Art in May. So the paintings are impressionistic but also rather conceptual as well. —Exerpt of Aaron Butt and Ben Trale in conversation, 2021
54 Vernon Terrace, Teneriffe QLD 4005 info@janmantonart.com janmantonart.com 0419 657 768
Front Cover: Rote 7, 2020, oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm. Second Page: Details of Rote 1, Rote 10, Rote 9, oil on canvas (dimensions variable). Second Last Page: Rote 10, 2020, oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5cm.
Gallery Director Jan Manton Gallery Manager Taylor Hall