dianne tanzer gallery + projects
JUAN FORD
Juan Ford could be described as an artist’s artist. His photorealist paintings are immaculately executed, whilst the ideas that underpin
them are both thought-out and thought provoking. Paying homage to Australia’s flora as much as they do to the canon of art history,
they are classical yet also contemporary and as one would expect time consuming and taxing to create. They are also about the
very act of painting.
For over a decade Ford has investigated the relationship between humans and the environment in which we live: complex, strained,
challenging, in sync and out of sync. His intimately portrayed branches of eucalypts, kangaroo paws and other indigenous plants
are adulterated with thick gelatinous-like paint that chokes leaves and drips off their stems. Enveloping and sometimes erasing part
of a plant’s structure, emergency tape and clear wrapping trap and tightly entwine branches. Red rubber gloves sit over clusters of
leaves - a modern-day, human-made, synthetic crown. Beautifully painted, these works reveal tension in a world of cohabitation, a
world where species have competing needs and priorities, where perhaps only one - nature or human intervention – will succeed.
The paintings are also deeply rooted in the Australian art historical canon; the depiction of indigenous plants recalls both early
botanical drawings, the works of the Colonial painters and the heroes of the Heidelberg School, while the cloudless, jewel-like blue
sky that unifies the paintings, trumpets the uniqueness of Australian light. These paintings are also about place: the interior, the coast,
the suburbs, the locations which the artist has visited. However, any notions of Nationalistic fervour are tempered, challenged and
undermined by the ever-present interventions, which subjugate floral symbols that would usually champion a nation.
This body of work, perhaps most importantly, celebrates and questions what it means to paint and more pertinently what this means
to the artist. While Ford has been applauded for his technical virtuosity his works are still just paintings. Standing in front of them is not
the same as being in the landscape or having a conversation with the sitter in a portrait. It is a mediated and secondary experience
that offers new insights, asks new questions and rewards in different ways. Painting as the artist has suggested is somewhat of an
absurdity, a folly, but one that is still important and should be celebrated - and for Ford at least is essential. Like the human/nature
tension found in the subjugated flora paintings, the painter as shamanistic figure in Rock ‘n’ Roll extolls similar tensions experienced
by the artist. Cloaked as both hero and anti-hero he exerts his influence pushing the rock along its journey, only for the rock to push
back – a sisypheius dance. This new body of work asks the questions of what is painting, why do we do it, why do we need it? For
Ford, the process is taxing and sometimes torturous. It is a process that is curious, academic and underpinned by an introspective
searching. It is a process about technical feats and intelligent, never-ending ideas. Ultimately though, painting is as the Italian painter
Albert Burri claimed, ‘a freedom attained, constantly consolidated, vigilantly guarded so as to draw from it the power to paint more’.
Dr Vincent Alessi
Artistic Director
LUMA | La Trobe University Museum of Art
Juan Ford biography
Juan Ford, born 1973, lives and works in Melbourne, Victoria.
Education: M.A. by research, RMIT University, Melbourne 2001
(1st class Honours). Has been commissioned to create work for
various institutions, including Hotel de Immigrantes, a project
in Manifesta 9, the European Biennale; and held over 20 solo
exhibitions since 1998. Group, survey and institutional exhibitions
include; The Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Brisbane;
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; McClelland Gallery and
Sculpture Park, Melbourne; Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne;
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, as well as in many art
fairs, regional galleries and university institutions nationwide and
abroad.
Selected awards and grants: Australia Council for the Arts New
Work Grant (2010 & 2012); Peoples’ choice prize for the Basil
Sellars Art Prize, at the Ian Potter Museum (2010); The 2006
Fisher’s Ghost Art Award; the 2004 Fletcher Jones Art Award.
Residencies include: Art OMI Residency, Omi International Arts
Centre, Columbia County, New York State, USA (2010); Australia
Council Studio Residency in Rome (2006). His work is represented
in significant collections nationwide.
108-110 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
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