RICHARD DUNLOP

Richard Dunlop has forged a successful career as a contemporary artist for a sustained period of more than twenty years. In this time, he has been at the forefront of painting’s resurgence in popularity and appeal, and has never been shy of breaking with established art conventions, such as his blending of elements from botanical illustration with still life and landscape traditions.

While it is these luminous works - elegantly built up using countless thin veils of colour - for which he is best known, tattoo iconography has been a regular theme throughout his oeuvre. He explains, “The image of tattooed bodies has been a discrete and recurrent theme in my own career development, and first began in 1992.”1

Initially not envisaged as a cohesive body of works, Dunlop was encouraged by his commercial gallerist to develop the works further, culminating in the 2003 solo exhibition Tattoo: New Paintings, and subsequently the 2006 exhibition entitled The First Cut is the Deepest.

Dunlop’s conceptual engagement with tattoo imagery, which includes his interest in entomology as discussed in the central essay, is multi-faceted, explaining, “I am particularly interested in the function of tattoos to fix a person’s identity in a voluntary manner, to never have a chance to forget something or erase it easily from view, and for the links between this and ancient back scarification practices of particular cultures in the Asia-Pacific region.”2

Importantly, the tattoo paintings created by Dunlop are not a garish adjunct, but a seamless means to introduce a figurative element to his landscape and still life explorations. Backs of men are tattooed with various foliage; the figure enveloped by the overgrown vegetation. Delicately rendered reclining and suspended nudes are marked all over with the porcelain vessels that occupy the shelves of his still life triumphs.

In this, Dunlop explores the interconnectedness of things; of nature, people, our creations and customs, and also of the timeless art genres of landscape, the nude, and still life.

Notes

1 Letter from the Artist, 25 July 2013

2 Letter from the Artist, 25 July 2013

Image - Opposite:

Richard Dunlop

Kate’s Favourite

Balancing Trick [detail] 2002 - 2008

Oil on linen, 180 x 120 cm

Courtesy of the Artist, Richard Dunlop, and Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane

Image - Overleaf:

Richard Dunlop

Goldie’s Favourite

Balancing Trick [detail] 2002 - 2008

Oil on linen, 120 x 180 cm

Courtesy of the Artist, Richard Dunlop, and Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane

Image: Rob Douma

Society, Ink. [detail] 2015

Acrylic on cement skulls

120 x 120 x 16 cm