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Chris Humphries
'Pasion De Multitudes'
march 3 - 26 / 2005
written by
Associate Professor Ken Wach,
Head of the School of Creative Arts,
The University of Melbourne 2005 |
"Pasion de Multitudes" (lots of passion) is Chris Humphries'self-selected title for his latest solo exhibition of paintings at Helen Gory Galerie in central Prahran. The Spanish phrase was recalled from a graphic logo for the Bolivian soccer team Oriente Petrolero, which was printed on a simple rubber foam seat mat. Personal memories of Humphries's trips to Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru in 2003 were somehow encapsulated by the simple appeal and rough charm of this unsophisticated and brightly coloured object. Its crude pattern, bold typography and brazen graphics typified a fresh aesthetic sensibility - its visual characteristics reflected a different culture and other values. Humphries always finds these types of mental and visual jolts fascinating. The high altitudes, the crisp thin air and the vibrant colours and icons of South America were totally captivating. Moving about, Humphries constantly looks for visual characteristics that seem to condense impressions. For him, the Latin passion and Pre-Columbian hybridity of South America seem to be captured in such visual juxtapositions or sensations and his current paintings stand as expressive condensations of these
impressions.
Humphries is a wandering eye. Therefore, what we get in his paintings
are graphic, lucid mental snapshots of a cool exoticism. He wanders -
we wait and watch for the results. His is a collar up roving
imagination that needs active engagement with otherness. What we
eventually view in his paintings are not the false images of tourist
postcards, but the aesthetic reconstructions of an informed and
perceptive artistic imagination. Humphries is quite clear on these
points:
"When I travel, I am an accumulator of designs, graphics and script that catch my eye whether it be on packaging, advertising or just general paraphernalia that I collect along the way. I pay attention to the obscure or the obvious in what I find to be quirky to the country and people I visit. I have used script and type in a lot of these works, mainly as a reference to
postcards. The concept of the postcard interests me as a traveller.
The image of the perfect scenario that is often presented to us on a
postcard is not always the case. From an outsider's point of view I
am trying to convey to the viewer, with this body of work, the strong
sense of passion for culture, history, sport and natural wonders that
engulfs you wherever you go in South America."
It is worth pointing out a new and curious thing. The latest
generation of young and talented artists are not just staying at home
in Australia. They are footloose and they travel! Unlike artists of
an older generation, when they travel they leave Australia at home.
Mental detachment is essential to their purpose. Not only do they
travel, but also they read and immerse themselves in another culture
and let its newness wash over them. Humphries read widely during his
trips and devoured the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alvaro Mutis,
Eduardo Galeano, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa and Louis De
Berniers. Moreover, Humphries used music to recapture the passionate
spirit of South America and has many favourite groups: Tito Puente,
Machito's Orchestra, Tito Rodriguez, Celia Cruz, Jal Bosca, Mongo
Santamaria, The Quantic Soul Orchestra and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
The content, notes, tones, value systems and emotional resonance of
all these cultural activities are quite different and very striking to
an Australian mind. Humphries sees all the ethical and cultural
strangeness of South America oddly captured in the following enigmatic
passage from Vargas's novel, 'The Feast of the Goat'.
"For the sake of twenty years of friendship, help me, Juan Tomas. I have to kill him. I have to avenge Tavito!"" The General put his hand over his friend's mouth. He looked around, indicating with a gesture that the servants could hear them. He took him behind the stables, where they usually did target practice.
"We'll do it together, Antonio. To avenge Tavito and so many other Dominicans for the shame we carry inside
us."
Obviously, the more foreign the better, as the strangeness sharpens the senses- everything must be as though seen for the first time. Europe holds few such surprises - its images are so well-known and recirculated
that they seem familiar, even to the first time traveller. It is also
important to recall that Humphries's paintings contain no Australian
elements and they are not perplexed or restricted by local idioms or
questions of national identity - such questions or themes draw yawns.
Humphries's imagination is of Australia, but it is not about Australia
- Humphries' thought is implanted into other lands and then fertilised
by foreign nutrients. A Post-modern love of surface and cultural edge
comes into play - the seductive appeal of difference is always
present. For example, in South America, Humphries was particularly
struck by the silent witness of the monumental Chimu and Moche temples
in Peru; the majesty of the Cordillera Blanca mountains; the desert
dry, and perfectly preserved, adobe structures of Acros Iris near
Truillo and the geometric patterning of walls, murals and ceramic
artefacts.
Humphries, therefore, is a new type of Australian artist - one whose
works are lively and acute visual commentaries, based upon reflections
on the world of travel, popular culture, mass media, pictorial
information and the ephemera of everyday life. He confirms this
himself:
"I call my works diaristic journals. My exhibitions are a visual diary.
The more I travel and the older I get - the more acute my
observations. I feel that my nomadic quality energises my thoughts
and my works."
Associate Professor Ken Wach, Head of the School of Creative Arts
The University of Melbourne. 2005.
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Further Information:
Helen Gory
03 95252808 0413123705
[email protected]
www.helengory.com
tues - sat 11am/6pm |
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