
Dale Frank’s latest exhibition at Gow Langsford Onehunga continues his bold exploration of painting’s material and conceptual boundaries. Renowned for his distinctive resin works—luminous, fluid, and technically complex—Frank’s practice engages with the historical lineage of painting while simultaneously pushing it into new terrain. His vivid compositions, layered with rich colour and unpredictable movement, reflect a career spanning five decades of artistic innovation. Characterised by evocative and often enigmatic titles, Frank’s works exist in a space between abstraction, material experimentation, and contemporary culture. This exhibition presents a compelling selection of new paintings that highlight his ever-evolving approach to the medium.
Using materials that range from conventional paints to combinations of liquid detergent and molten aluminium, Dale Frank’s paintings are as much about the painting process as they are the finished work. Liquid substances are often poured onto Frank’s canvases which are tilted during the drying process. The resulting visceral uneven surfaces draw attention to the physical making of the painting. Some works take many months to fully dry, thus can be considered to be in flux as the composition and appearance of the painting evolves over a period of months. His paintings often have a sexual and biological quality which is frequently reiterated by the artist’s choice of title. While many of these paintings appear wholly abstract, they frequently offer the illusion of an image. The physicality of the materials acts as a catalyst to trigger visual associations, encouraging the eye to scan back and forth between abstraction and depiction.

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