AR Writes - Alex Davern’s Transparent things

Transparent things installation view Image courtesy of the artist and Bett Gallery, Hobart. Photo: Peter Whyte

Alex Davern has been my studio neighbour at 65 Murray Street since I moved in last December. His show Transparent things has just finished at Bett Gallery in Hobart (coincidentally in the same building, underneath our studios). You can view the full catalogue at the Bett Gallery website page here.

Medium: Painting, but he also makes sculptures + installation works.

Favourite colour: Alex doesn’t have a favourite colour [“I don’t do favourites anymore”] but it used to be Coca Cola red.

Ever since I first came across Alex’s work a few years ago, I have been

1. Forever admiring his clean lines and impeccable stencilling capabilities

   &

2. very curious about where the imagery in his work stems from.

In light of these points of interest, I sat down with Alex last week to chat about all things painting, Hobart, art and ice cream.

There is something incredibly interesting in the duality of the word ‘transparent’ in its literal and metaphorical senses: sometimes opaque things are clearly displayed and easily defined [metaphoric transparency] and physically transparent things can be hard to distinguish from a background [metaphoric opacity - not easily decipherable beyond an object’s face value]. More confusingly, any visual representation of a thing can harbour hidden meaning and be nearly impossible to ‘see through’ clearly. Hence, for me the title of this exhibition Transparent Things, should not be taken merely literally. The same can also be said for Davern’s paintings.

AR: The title of this show Transparent things - how did you come by that name?

AD: ‘Well, at the time I had just finished reading the novel by Vladimir Nabokov of the same title. I often make lists of possible titles as I make work, and then I choose the one that best fits at the end. There’s also a pop song Transparent Things by Fujiya & Miyagi that I’ve been listening to lately.’

It is interesting that Davern references Nabokov’s Transparent Things, a novel that circulates around memories of place and life’s journeys, because this informs my reading of the show. Walking into Transparent things at Bett Gallery conjured images in my mind of fully-stocked retail showrooms, streetscapes, and magazine pages, as well as the feeling I had walked in on a personal conversation the artist is having with himself. There is beauty in the contrasting elements of the paintings; the solidly, clearly-defined edges that whisper elusive stories.

The paintings are covered in Alex’s trademark bright, playful colour palette with subtle flirty suggestions to texture, scale and perspective. His works are seductive in their paired-back yet lively compositions that at once both entice and refuse visual reading. This show is both a continuation and departure from Alex’s previous work; although he is utilising the same techniques and colours, there are a lot more elements and details to be found in his 2019 body of paintings.

““The void - it still calls me sometimes””

— Alex Davern

AR: I like that you have graduated from the near-abstraction of your older work and seem to be moving towards more figuration and texture. Do you think this will continue in the future?

AD: ‘There was a point in the past when my paintings were more minimal and abstracted. I think the difference now is I’m painting for myself- I’m letting my internal dialogue inform the conversations happening, it’s more personal and fulfilling. That’s not to say I see myself straying completely away from abstraction in the future… the void - it still calls me sometimes’ [chuckling].

Far from feeling dejected for not being able to ‘get’ his paintings at first glance, I actually really enjoy the push-back that I feel. I accept that I will perhaps never understand the paintings in the same way Alex himself has created them - nevertheless in their gaiety and seeming universal nondescript they invite me to seek my own interpretation. When I view his 2019 show Transparent things, I attempt to navigate the works with a mix of both my unique personal experiences and a millennial’s visual lexicon of pop culture imagery.

Enter through the back door 2019 acrylic on canvas
112 x 92cm - image from Bett Gallery online catalogue: [https://www.bettgallery.com.au/artists/davern/transparent-things/07-alex-davern.html]

A prime example of how I read his works is through what I am able to glimpse in Enter through the back door, where Davern has manipulated the band Oasis’ logo to show only two of the letters. This ‘O - I’ rectangle rests in the top left corner, above other obtusely secretive elements including an avocado-coloured popsicle (a symbol of pure millennial hedonism), a battery re-loading infographic (very satisfying, strangely nostalgic as well as sexual) and some minimal lines and shapes suggestive of a reflective glass surface - perhaps the front window of a retail shop. These elements sit boldly against a background of what I would personally call a turd-emoji brown💩. All of these things combined bring about suggestive interpretations of the title, which in itself is a seductive line.

AR: ‘Do you make changes as you go, or is the work pretty much planned before you start it?’

AD: ‘It’s a bit of both - I pre-design the composition but a lot of the work gets changed as I go. Actually, in Enter through the back door the ice-cream was a last minute change - I had it in my mind to make a work with a snow cone in it: one of my earliest memories of Hobart is as a child walking around by the wharf area… tragedy struck when I dropped my snow cone on the pavement and watched it melt. When it came to painting this I ended up swapping out the snow cone for a more classic popsicle shape - but the snow cone memory is still there in this work for me’.

Underground car park gets a fresh coat of paint 2019, acrylic on canvas 112 x 112cm. Image from Bett Gallery online catalogue: https://www.bettgallery.com.au/artists/davern/transparent-things/05-alex-davern.html

AR: I really love the texture and subtle painterly qualities in your work. Especially the wet-like dripping in the bottom right of Underground car park gets a fresh coat of paint - It really adds to the storytelling and incorporates the tactile quality of a memory. Are these additions of texture a recent development in your paintings?

AD: ‘Well for a while now I’ve had the ‘texture’ of thick edges of stencils made from the buildup of multiple layers of paint. I think with this show I have tried to be ‘looser’ and incorporate more diversity. I still struggle with being ‘loose’.

AR: There’s a sexual energy in these works - is that how you want people to read them?

AD: ‘There are many ways to read my work, I like people to see what they can discover for themselves. But yes, there is a sexual tension in amongst the chaos. It’s all a bit silly really, there’s humour there too.’

The fact that Davern’s work only tells us half of the story (or even a bit less) begets questions such as is the work a visual day-in-the-life story of snippets personal to the artist?, a depiction of the over-saturation of images we experience in 2019?, or a collection of visual repartees detailing the mirth and confusion experienced in daily life? I would argue that it is both all of the above or something else entirely… at the end of the day you will need to find out what you see in them for yourself.

AR

[A big thank you to Alex Davern for giving his time to be interviewed and also congratulations to him and Bett Gallery on a fantastic exhibition].