Exhibitions: Brook Andrew and Robert Campbell Jnr

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present GABAN: House of Strange, an exhibition of new works by Brook Andrew and an exhibition of historic works by the late Robert Campbell Jnr, in the artist's second posthumous exhibition with the gallery.⁠

GABAN: House of Strange is a series of new portraits and scenes by Brook Andrew that recall his earlier work Gun Metal Grey, 2007 and the experimental mixed media process he developed in collaboration with Stewart Russell and Danica Miller. The images are derived from video stills and photographs the artist made with a group of performers in Berlin during an intense period of rehearsals for the new video work of post-traumatic theatre, GABAN. ⁠

Flickering in and out of focus, depending on the light source, the figures are elusive - their appearance broken by the folds and imperfections of the printing process which register like scars and ripples of electricity. There is a play of visibility, a conflict between what is seen and not seen, that speaks to the challenges of capturing these powerful characters and moments of intimacy, performance and the carnivalesque.⁠

Robert Campbell Jnr (1944-1993) was primarily a self-taught painter who emerged during the 1980s as an extremely important Indigenous artist. Campbell’s striking, dynamic paintings are based on the patterning, colours and stylistic conventions of traditional Ngaku designs from the Dunghutti nation.⁠

⁠In this exhibition of paintings created throughout the 1980s and early-1990s, Campbell’s bold idiosyncratic imagery and frank depictions of real-life events are immediately recognisable as he offers stark commentary on life for Aboriginal people at that time. His vibrant paintings tell stories of his childhood and the Ngaku people, entwined with the politics surrounding Aboriginal rights in the 1980s, simultaneously reminding us of their pertinent contemporary relevance.⁠