DEL KATHRYN BARTON born 1972
Feel the Earth, Deeply 2019
Estimate: $60000 - 80000
Description
DEL KATHRYN BARTON born 1972
Feel the Earth, Deeply 2019
oil and synthetic polymer paint on linen in hand-painted artist's frame
102.0 x 81.5 cm; 109.5 x 89.0 cm (framed)
signed lower centre: - del/ kathryn/ barton -
dated and inscribed lower left: feel/ the/ earth, deeply/ 2019 -
Provenance:
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 2019 (label attached verso)
Private collection, Sydney
Deutscher + Hackett, Sydney, 4 May 2022, lot 39
Private collection, Adelaide
Exhibited:
Del Kathryn Barton: I Wanted to Build a Bed for All the Tired Beds, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 3-25 October 2019, cat.8
Estimate: $60000 - 80000
Del Kathryn Barton’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre consists almost exclusively of portraiture. She first won the country’s most prestigious portraiture prize, the Archibald, in 2008 for her self-portrait with her two children, titled You Are What is Most Beautiful about Me, a Self-portrait with Kell and Arella. Her second win in 2013, for her portrait of actor Hugo Weaving, saw her join the exclusive group of only 16 artists who have won the prize more than once.
Barton’s practice is largely driven by her feminist values. References to female sexuality, motherhood and nature are persistent throughout her work and the present painting is no exception. The sitter’s stare is unapologetic, determined and fierce, a portrayal of a strong and autonomous woman, much like Barton herself. The title Feel the Earth, Deeply has a softer tone, calling to mind ‘Mother Nature’ and the regenerative force of the earth. Curator Julie Ewington describes Barton as an ‘exemplary post-feminist artist, in the most positive and celebratory sense of that term.’(1)
Large eyes are a recurring motif in Barton’s work, and speak to the artist’s insistence on watchfulness. Rather than traditional female figures from art history who are passive subjects, seemingly unaware of being observed, Barton’s figures are excessively aware and look back at their viewers, subverting the usual viewer/subject relationship. Our subject in Feel the Earth, Deeply glares outward, her dominant eyes squeezed into a squint of suspicion, anger or curiosity. Her vigilant eyes are the focal point of the composition, while her tempestuous hair swirls dynamically around her face.
It is unsurprising that Barton depicts female figures so adroitly, as her creativity was inherited from her female line. Her grandmother, Nancy Barton, had an exceptional talent for domestic craft work and Barton lived with her for a year while at art school in Sydney. Her mother, Karen Barton, was a craft artist who encouraged Barton’s artistic tendencies from a young age and shaped her aesthetic sensibilities.(2) They have worked together on a number of fabric pieces throughout her life, including hand-stitched, padded silk frames. For Feel the Earth, Deeply Barton has painted the frame, blurring the lines between fine art, manufacturing, design and craft.
This obfuscation of fine art and domestic craft is recurrent in Barton’s work. She repeatedly uses needlework and craft alongside painting, combining the highest and the lowest mediums of the traditional artistic hierarchy. In doing so she is reappropriating the traditionally female domain of domestic craft into high art. Of this Barton remarks that she ‘always finds categorisation so tedious… Everything’s collapsing in a really great way.’(3)
Barton’s vibrant, figurative works involve intricate design details, such her backgrounds made up of miniscule and mesmerising coloured dots. This distinct artistic style and its lasting impression on audiences has seen her become one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists.
Footnotes:
1. Ewington, J., Del Kathryn Barton, Piper Press, Sydney, 2014, p.87
2. Fortescue, E., ‘Del Kathryn Barton’s Major new exhibition honours the mother who never got to see it’, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 20 November 2017
3. Dewey, I., ‘Spiders, Bunnies and Armani Suits: Del Kathryn Barton Hits New York’, Broadsheet, Sydney and Melbourne, 22 June 2017, accessed October 2024: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/national/art-and-design/article/spiders-bunnies-and-armani-suits-del-kathryn-barton-hits-new-york-victoria
Asta Cameron
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Location
Sale & Exhibition Details
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Exhibition
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Sydney
7-9 November 2024
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10 November 2024
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Melbourne
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17 November 2024
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18-19 November 2024
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