Foreign Language
AARON BUTT 12 August - 6 September 2020
Since his first exhibition in 2015, ecologies. He has made paintings architecture and artist biography. are mediated through the use of
Aaron Butt’s practice has been in continual dialogue with art and its attendant and painted objects about the materiality and display conditions of art, museum However his works rarely appropriate specific artworks or imagery; instead they found images and materials, or by addressing a specific aspect of art production.
The catalyst for Butts’ new exhibition, Foreign Language was encountering the work of Dutch conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975) during a 2019 residency in Amsterdam (1). Ader disappeared in 1975 while attempting to sail solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat. The artist was struck by the similarity of Ader’s story to that of Scottish-Australian painter Ian Fairweather (1891-1974), who nearly died during his sixteen-day journey by raft from Darwin to Roti, Indonesia in 1952. Butt lives on Bribie Island, a seaside town north of Brisbane where Fairweather settled after his raft journey. Although his painterly meditations on faith and identity were not directly about the landscape, Fairweather developed his celebrated abstract painting style while living on Bribie Island and produced many of his most important works there. The biographical details from Fairweather’s life are a starting point for Butt to consider the relationship between abstraction and the landscape. The exhibition is anchored by Raft Journey (1-16) 2020, a series of grey-scale paintings that imagine Fairweather’s perspective of his ill-fated voyage. Butt researched available information about the journey, including the artist’s own account to construct his images. Fairweather’s description of seeing figures dancing in the sky is represented in one painting by figuration from Henri Matisse’s celebrated painting The Dance (1910). In borrowing from art history, Butt reinforces the mythology of Fairweather’s journey. Other images in the series are more minimal, focusing on a barely perceptible horizon, dividing the ocean from the sky. They are figurative paintings of an abstract landscape. Reflecting Butts’ pluralistic approach the exhibition includes both abstract and representational landscapes, drawing on a range of art historical precedents in addition to Fairweather. A number of figurative works are based on photographs of seminal land art installations from the 1960s and 70s. For Landscape (after Gorgoni) 2020, Butt painted one of Gianfranco Gorgoni’s black and white images of Chalk Piece by Walter de Maria onto a re-used canvas board/ palette. The origin of the work’s substrate is evident through liquid nail residue visible beneath the painted surface.
In recent years, Butt has moved away from the traditional stretched canvas, preferring to use found materials for his painting support. This shift reflects the artist’s growing interest in painting as both object and image; and how the potential readings of a work ‘can multiply exponentially from the right combination (of the two)’ (2). The use of found substrates also echoes Fairweather’s use of humble materials, such as cardboard. Butt’s abstract compositions are an immediate and instinctive response to his observations of the landscape, as well as to his found materials. The abstract vocabulary contained in these works ranges from expressionistic brushstrokes to minimal markings. In a number of paintings, the frame becomes part of the composition, underlining the artist’s holistic approach to the paintingobject. Butt sources many of his substrates and frames from a second-hand shop on Bribie Island, coincidentally located near Fairweather Park, named in honour of the artist. Working with materials in a meaningful way enables the artist to locate his practice in a specific context even as he engages with broader art historical and contemporary narratives. His work embodies what theorist Isabelle Graw has characterised as the ‘liveliness of painting’; that is, the way in which the medium has been able to absorb developments in art, society and technology while retaining its inherently unique qualities (3). The multiplicity of connections and reference points in Butts’ paintings are not accidental. They reflect the thought and care the artist gives to making his work, from his choice of materials to how the painted image relates to its substrate and frame. While each aspect of the work is interesting in its own right, collectively they speak to fundamental questions about what constitutes a painting; and how a painting communicates information to the viewer. Hamish Sawyer Notes 1. Butt first saw Ader’s work in a Museum of Modern Art catalogue ‘In and Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art 1960-76’ an important reference text for his practice. 2. Email from the artist to the author, 9/7/20] 3. Isabelle Graw ‘The Value of Liveliness: Painting as an index of agency in the new economy’ in Graw, I & Lajer-Burcharth, E, Painting beyond itself: the medium in the post-medium condition, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2016.
Desert (after Heizer), 2020 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 30cm x 30cm $990
Fairweather Park (for J.M), 2020 Oil on canvas 101cm x 152cm $3900
Raft Journey 1, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 2, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 9, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 10, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 3, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 11, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 4, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 12, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 5, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 6, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 13, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 14, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 7, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 15, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 8, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Raft Journey 16, 2020 Oil on canvas, 122cm x 61 cm $2500
Ridgey Didge (for L.B), 2019 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 25cm x 30cm $880
Untitled (Grey and Black), 2020 Acrylic on hessian and wood, 34cm x 28cm $770
Portrait of Armand Roulin, 2019 Oil, acrylic and collage on wooden box, 17cm x 16cm $550
Untitled (Black and Grey), 2020 Acrylic on paper around stretcher in frame, 29cm x 24cm $770
Ridgey Didge II (for L.B), 2020 Oil and board on canvas, 31cm x 40.5cm $880
Landscape (after Oppenheim) II, 2020 Oil on leather in frame, 69cm x 52cm $1900
Kröller-Müller (after Nauman), 2019 Oil and acrylic on board and canvas, 18cm x 17.5cm $770
Dutch Landscape (Hoge Veluwe), 2020 Oil on mdf, 80cm x 30.5cm $1500
Dutch Landscape (Gemeentemuseum), 2020 oil on mdf, 80cm x 30.5cm $1500
Dutch Landscape (Kröller-Müller), 2020 Oil on mdf, 80cm x 30.5cm $1500
Dutch Landscape (Stedelijk), 2020 Oil on mdf, 80cm x 30.5cm $1500
Book Market Spui, 2019 Oil on canvas, 25cm x 25cm $880
Landscape (after Long) II, 2020 Oil and wood stain on canvas panel and cork board, 29.5cm x 25.5cm $880
Landscape (after Long), 2020 Oil and wood stain on wooden box, 30cm x 20.5cm, $660
Landscape (after Barry) II, 2020 Oil and acrylic on canvas board on lino, 29.5cm x 29cm $700
Landscape (after Heizer) II, 2020 Oil on ACM and wood panel, 40.5cm x 39.5cm $990
Hoge Veluwe, 2020 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 26cm x 26cm $660
Godwin Beach, 2020 Oil, acrylic and wood-stain on wooden box, 38cm x 13.5cm $660
Een Schilderij voor Nedelands, 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 10cm x 10cm $440
Untitled (Stake Painting), 2020 Oil on wood in frame, 10cm x 8cm $440
Parabola, 2019 Oil and tape on paper envelope, 36cm x 23cm $440
Parabolas, 2020 Oil on canvas, 28cm x 36cm $880
Painting, 2019 Oil on card, 19cm x 26cm $440
Abstraction, 2018 Acrylic on canvas in frame, 33.5cm x 33.5cm $990
Abstraction (After Barry), 2018 Acrylic on canvas in frame, 33.5cm x 33.5cm $990
Field, 2020 Oil on canvas panel in frame, 40cm x 20cm $990
Landscape, 2020 Oil on canvas in frame, 28cm x 22cm $990
Arabic Painting II, 2020 Oil and corner protectors on canvas, 26cm x 26cm $770
Stamps (Field), 2020 Oil and acrylic on wood panel $550
Abstract 2, 2020, Acrylic in frame, 21cm x 17.5cm $660
Abstract 3, 2020 Acrylic in frame, 24cm x 18.5cm $660
Abstract 1, 2020 Acrylic in frame, 20cm x 20cm $660
Stamps (Gradient), 2020 Oil on book cover, 38cm x 28cm $660
Stamp, 2019 Acrylic on paper, 21cm x 21cm $440
Wrapped Little Bay (after Christo), 2020 Oil and acrylic on chessboard (verso), 36cm x 36cm $1100
Miura, 2020 Oil on canvas, 61cm x 31cm $1100
Landscape (after Gorgoni), 2020, Acrylic and oil on board, 25cm x 36cm $880
For all enquies email info@janmantonart.com All images courtesy of the artist and Jan Manton Gallery.
Gallery Director Jan Manton Gallery Manager Taylor Hall