Title

Deceivers of the pack: Recent works by Rona Green and Rew Hanks.

Venues

Port Jackson Press Print Room. (2 September 2006 – 30 September 2006)

Date

(2006)

Summary

Multi-artist exhibition. Located: Australia (VIC).

Documentation

3 fold invite / catalogue

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

“Hanks and Green construct elaborate fibs around kernels of truth, crafting personal mythologies in which heroes and villains interchange roles, and underdogs and outsiders defy the dominant pack (or Packers, as the case may be).”  Jazmina Cininas Deceivers of the Pack Exhibition Catalogue

This two-person exhibition features the work of Rona Green, the recently announced winner of the prestigious Silk Cut Award for linocuts, and Rew Hanks, both established printmakers known for their brilliant linocut prints. With a strong sense of the absurd, Rew Hanks provides a much-needed critique of issues surrounding colonisation and its environmental legacies. Embodying these concerns, the long extinct thylacine populates his work. More recently Hanks has drawn on the Packer family as a source of inspiration, envisaging their various shenanigans as modern day media monarchs.

“Along with sheep and corgis, the Packers have entered the artist’s pantheon of colonial conquerors. Wielding crickets bats and polo mallets mounted on horses in scenes reminiscent of Indian mughal miniatures, the media magnate is the embodiment of power, privilege and empire.”

Jazmina Cininas Deceivers of the Pack Exhibition Catalogue

The pack that Rona Green deceives is of a decidedly more canine variety. Her work has long explored the idea of the social outcast, or misfit, with her pets and other animals inspiring the odd characters that appear. Tattooed and menacing, Green’s cast of outsiders are conveyed with striking graphic simplicity. In this recent body of work the symbology of tattoos and their specific meanings remain a strong component. After recent travel to Borneo, tribal body markings that indicate the cannibalistic habits of its indigenous population are incorporated into her repertoire of skin designs that signify disreputable human activity.

Both artists have collaborated on the print Convict Carnnivore vs Eloquent Earl. In a meeting of the menacing native thylacine, verses the smug, self-satisfied fox – the work is a witty take on the notion of colonial superiority, and was made during a successful period spent in the Port Jackson Press Studio. [Port Jackson Press PR]