DALE FRANK

Dale Frank initially became known in the art world through his performances and assemblages, but throughout his career, he has experimented with different materials in order to challenge the concept of painting by embracing the full chemical and physical transformative process of the medium. While the artist engages in the physical process of creating his works, he believes that each has a life and lifespan of its own that is created as a result.

Many of the new works on display incorporate the artist’s long-standing use of pigmented varnishes, which have been poured, melted, and folded to create abstract images. Widely recognised for his use of bright colours, the pigments on display are rich and intense, ranging from acrid pink to cobalt blue. Also at the gallery will be a number of works that show coloured resin and liquid glass utilised in a similar way. The pigments and resin used by Dale Frank are bound to Perspex, which, spatially and conceptually, add a new dimension to his work. Although he previously worked on canvas, Frank found that the reflective nature of Perspex alters the paint quality, with the resins and pigments appearing to cascade down the work’s façade.

In other works demonstrative of recent developments in the artist’s practice, Frank has used shattered glass, fire retardant foam, and compression foam on Perspex, adding a sculptural quality to these works, which are then coated in Harlequin paint, colour resins, and varnish. A build-up of these materials suggests celestial typographies while re-examining the very nature of painting and what constitutes it. Also on display will be a work that sees the use of human hair in a similarly sculptural fashion, with extension pieces creating a cascade of monochromatic forms along the surface.

“From the very beginning, my work has been premised on the notion that the art produced is independent of myself. Paintings tend to be more interested in pointing out how they exist, act, and ‘live’ beyond the realm of human perception, a paradox of sorts given the contrived nature of artworks.”

—Dale Frank