Peter Gardiner: Act I and II

Overview

Having helped stimulate something of a Redfern renaissance, it's with a heavy heart that Damien Minton Gallery will soon close its doors. Although Sydney's creative scene is thriving, it's the ease and international scope of the online marketplace that has seen less buyers step inside commercial galleries. One of the last exhibitions to be shown at this space is a two-part show by Australian painter Peter Gardiner. Currently on display is a ten-year survey of his work, and opening on July 22 is a selection of new work, titled Prima Facie.

Hailing from Newcastle, Gardiner digs into his local roots, producing dramatic oil paintings of this industrial city. However, there's not a hint of homeliness to these monochrome works. Full of shadowy streets and silhouetted buildings, they seem to obscure rather than reveal urban details. One of the most distinctive features of his painterly style is a kind of blurring effect. Blending angry clouds with rising smoke, his streaky brushwork creates an electric atmosphere.

Switching dense and dark for something full of fine detail and white space, Gardiner’s Padoga series takes its cue from the traditional tiered towers commonly found in East Asia. He populates these structures with all sorts of symbols and characters. It feels like part travelogue and part folklore. There are wandering elephants and half butchered animals, grim reapers and gargoyles. Again, there’s a blurring of natural phenomena — a rain cloud dissolves into a treetop, and a smoking explosion becomes a cascading waterfall.

Another interesting work is Parliament. This grid of floating heads looks like a collection of political forefathers. With protruding lumps and jagged teeth some are quite ghoulish, while others are barely discernible. Evidently, Gardiner has an affinity with the 18th- and 19th-century painters, skimming over modernism and post-modernism. These are Goya-style grotesqueries, while his moody landscapes look like something a contemporary William Blake might paint.

His latest offering goes back a bit further, inspired by the 16th-century mannerist Arcimboldo. Cited as an early influence on the Surrealists, his whimsical portrait heads are loaded with colour and cheekiness. Gardiner's take is a curious fusion of object, fauna and flesh. Bursting with different elements and seasons, they form an incoherent sensuality. Throughout his practice, there's a fascination with the elements, particularly conflicting ones like fire and water.

It’s not only Gardiner’s technical finesse that is quite compelling, but also the fluidity with which he manages to combine eclectic subject matter. It's as if he is standing with one foot in reality and another in mythology.