Neon Parc | Those Excited Colon Polyps

Dale Frank
‘Those Excited Colon Polyps’

Brunswick
30 Aug.–28 Sep.
2024

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Neon Parc is pleased to announce a major solo exhibition of new paintings by Dale Frank in Brunswick.

Celebrated in Australia and internationally as one of the most important artists of his generation, with a career spanning from 1975 to the present, Dale Frank has pursued a diverse and influential practice characterized by a decades-long commitment to painting and its formal and conceptual possibilities.

The artist has consistently probed the relationship between painting and the viewer, engaging a variety of styles and innovative techniques in a complex repositioning of genres. In Frank’s work, dual modes of representation and abstraction fundamentally question the way in which we relate to images.

For the artist’s thirteenth solo project with the gallery, a new suite of paintings reveal a powerful evolution of Frank’s honed technique and trace his development using a new medium—translucent dye— in concert with various resins and processes.

In this body of work, vivid colours ranging from sapphire blue, deep scarlet red to luminous neon pink, oscillate between tiny galaxies of colour and large opulent, gestural spills, creating a vivid, immense physicality.

“Dale Frank is part of an amazing lineage of Australian artists that push their practice to keep it dynamic and keep it at the forefront of what art is in our consciousness. What’s interesting about Dale Frank is he has both a local audience in Australia and also a presence internationally and that makes him a quite a potent force in Australian contemporary art. And when you look at Dale’s practice, he’s consistent with the fact that he produces work all the time.

He works very hard. And what you see is the work evolving. When you look back on his career over the last 40 years, the DNA of his voice, of his energy, of his manner, is embedded in that practice. It is very consistent in that it comes from a place of wanting to push art and challenge us on what art is in the 21st century.”
—Nick Mitzevich, Director, National Gallery of Australia

Dale Frank’s work is held in all major Australian state galleries, and a number of regional and university collections. It is also held in international collections, including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, New Zealand; Musée de Ville de Leige, Leige; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Zurich Kunsthaus; and significant corporate and private collections internationally.

The documentary film, ‘Nobody’s Sweetie’ directed by Jenny Hicks was premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in March and debuted to Victorian audiences at the Melbourne International Film Festival earlier this month.

The major monograph, ‘Dale Frank, Artist, Artworks 2006 - 2023’ was published in May this year. Designed by Stuart Geddes and Ziga Testen and featuring new texts by Edward Colless, Erik Jensen, Amelia Winata, and Georgina Reid.

Artworks

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