Neon Parc acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung as the Traditional Owners and sovereign custodians of the Country on which we operate. We pay our deepest respects to their Elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
Neon Parc is excited to present ‘Touching’, a new exhibition by Dale Frank, comprising an expansive sculptural work at Neon Parc Brunswick and paintings at Neon Parc South Yarra.
At Neon Parc South Yarra, a presentation of paintings continues Dale Frank’s longstanding exploration of identity, mortality, and the relationship between physical and psychological worlds through his signature painterly language. Vivid hues expand and collapse across the surfaces in luminous, unpredictable formations. At once intricate and expansive, the works possess a striking physicality that immerses the viewer.
At Neon Parc Brunswick, an expansive installation of sculptures extends these concerns into physical space. ‘Touching’ presents a group of four life-size cast figures of the artist himself, incorporating the perspective of time: one figure at 84 years old, others as if 50 and 60 years old. Each figure occupies a different position within a hospital surgical theatre environment: a chief surgeon, a surgical technician, a nurse, and a patient. Surrounded by contemporary functioning medical equipment, the figures, all Frank, appear caught within a moment of suspended options, function, mortality, and time.
Together, the two exhibitions create a dialogue between body and surface, object and image, stasis and movement. The sculptures occupy physical space as silent, life-size presences, while the paintings offer a more fluid and unstable field in which perception, emotion, and materiality continually shift.
Dale Frank, ‘He remembered loving the one on one swimming training in High School of an evening with Mr Baldwin, the twenty minute drive together to the quiet public pool, getting changed, the matching tropical hibiscus print speedos they both wore, the showers after training, but then Mr Baldwin just seemed to vanish’, 2026. Transparent dyes in Epoxyglass, Epoxyglass, 200 x 180 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘He said he could never have too many colonoscopies’, 2026. Powder colour pigments in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 180 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘The awkward morning after first hug at the kitchen island punctuated by her cat litter tray breath, bookended by the outside peak hour traffic noise’, 2026. Powder colour pigments in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 160 x 120 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘He did not know that his boyfriend was on the sex offenders site for something that happened when he was 17 but now that he knows there are compensations’, 2026. Transparent dyes in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 150 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘The hot stifling breeze blew thru the open car windows drying out his lips as he thought no one would miss him anyway’, 2026. Transparent dyes in Easycast, Epoxyglass,160 x 120 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘Simon died in his sleep in his favourite recliner after dinner and now lies in his chair, feet up, angrily yelling at the sickly smell of cooking fried eggs coming from the kitchen’, 2026. Powder colour pigments in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 200 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘Alice would spend her fortnightly pension, every Thursday evening, on Georgios, a Greek escort that she knew she could share her life with’, 2026. Powder colour pigments and transparent dyes in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 150 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘He could not understand why sex was still so important to her after all they had two kids and she was now so overweight’, 2026. Powder colour pigments in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 200 cm.
Dale Frank, ‘Jennifer a high school English teacher, had sex in her apartment after class with most of the 15 year old boys because she said they reminded her of her father, how she hated her father, hated her father cooking spagbol every Friday night’, 2026. Transparent dyes in Easycast, Epoxyglass, 200 x 200 cm.
