‘I wanna be rich’ features episodes from 2 bodies of work: a suite of reconstructed Glomesh and faux-mesh sculptures from the Postcard series and oil on linen works called Immediacy Paintings. The title is a tongue-in-mouthcheek fantasy amidst the reality that visual artists are almost always broke. ‘I wanna be rich’ is also coined from the 1989 song of the same name by US R&B duo Colloway.
The Postcard series sits within a raft of the artist’s work that has refashioned notions of dress and address, connected queer and Blak in ways that unsettle racial taxonomies, offering shimmering new spectacles of resistance and connection. His work comes into being through a laborious process of sourcing Glomesh items in thrift stores or via deceased estates and then unpicking, reordering, rewriting and ultimately refiguring the relationship of this ‘iconic Australian’ camp material with queered Blak Australia. Repetitively crafted, each Postcard references Aboriginal breastplates and whilst exploring place names, Country, Indigeneity, and colonial histories, the series also traverses the queer aesthetics of drag queens, jewellery and disco.
Each text of the Immediacy Paintings articulates seemingly mundane moments, slogans, thoughts and aspirations. The arrangements of words on the canvas are petroglyphic, sometimes subtle, sometimes stark. The phrases can appear as non-sequiturs, but gradually their layers as cultural connections manifest, revealing multivalent readings. These oily play-areas are sites for colliding cultural matter, making references to all kinds of interests, all sorts of subjects. They transform the personal and the political into either truth or humour or both.
I don’t mean to Billy Brag, 2019, oil on linen, 60 x 29cm
Postcard (Abbeywood and Windy), 2019, reconstructed Glomesh, 222 x 100cm
Postcard (Victoria and Katherine), 2019
reconstructed Glomesh
162 x 100cm
$28,000
$1,000
Subjugated by a ghost group, 2020 Oil on linen 22.5 x 27.5 cm Nudie by Nietzsche, 2020 Oil on linen 20.5 x 25.5 cm $990$1,000
3 cheers 4 coon cheese, 2022
Oil on linen
23 x 28 cm
It is As If, 2024
Oil on linen 22.5 x 23 cm
$990
Postcard (Acacia and Sandy), 2015
reconstructed faux-mesh
260 x 120cm
$20,000
Postcard (Nelly and Mona), 2012
reconstructed Glomesh 82 x 63cm
$8,000
Sologamy? I barely know me, 2022
Oil on linen
27.5 x 32.5 cm
$1,200
All surf no turf, 2024
Oil on linen 24 x 19 cm
$990
Postcard (Darling and Sausage), 2021
reconstructed Glomesh and faux-mesh
104 x 180cm
$20,000
I don’t mean to Billy Brag, 2019
Oil on linen
60 x 29 cm
$1,400
black betty and betty white meet at the grey bar, grey bar, 2021
Oil on linen
35 x 29.5 cm
1,200
Postcard (Mole and Adventure), 2020 reconstructed faux-mesh 129 x 315cm
$30,000
Postcard (Abbeywood and Windy), 2019 reconstructed Glomesh
222 x 100cm $25,000
you want a Maserati? you better workbench, 2022
Oil on linen
29 x 34.5 cm
1,200
wearing black lipstick for that i’ve-been-performingoral-sex-on-AI-Jolson look, 2023
Oil on linen
34.5 x 29.5 cm
$1,200
More nana-mouskourious than bi-curious, 2021
carmen miranda you can do it! 2022
1,100
$1,300
Oil on linen 23.5 x 29.5 cm Oil on linen 24.5 x 29.5 cm
Postcard (Blackbutt and Cherry), 2023
Reconstructed Glomesh
85 x 190 cm
$15,000
keep on ringing them bell hooks, 2022
Oil on linen
21.5 x 27 cm
$1,100
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0419 657 768
Gallery Director Jan Manton Gallery Manager Isabella Wright Jan Manton Gallery Vernon Terrace, Teneriffe QLD 4005 info@janmantonart.com janmantonart.com Front cover image: Postcard (Blackbutt and Cherry), 2023, reconstructed Glomesh, 85 x 190 cm