Nostalgia for the Future
In the 1980’s I encountered a painting by one of the then new enfant terrible Neo-expressionist American painters David Salle at the National Gallery Victoria. It had Salle’s standard mixture of exquisite drawing, bravura brushwork and transferred photos but what shocked me was a curved vinyl chair back stuck to the middle of the canvas. Of course when reproduced in the art magazine it only registered as a flat image, but here it intruded pugnaciously into my physical world and yet was a logical part of the picture in a beautiful hierarchy of means, which extended from sketchy drawing through painterliness and photography to real objects.
Salle belonged to a lineage that stretched back through Rauschenberg and Duchamp but his painting used that vocabulary with the images of my time and it was fresh, real and part of my world.
Rehgan De Mather’s works operate as part of the same tradition, employing a magpie collecting instinct and an eye for the remarkable in the ordinary. De Mather, like Salle, has formidable drawing skills, which when combined with the objects from the now that he fastens to his work, honour a sense of immediacy and moment. Like many contemporary artists he uses personal branding devices in his painting and these seem to rhyme and contrast poetically with the many artifacts from the advertising world that he appropriates.
One can imagine that in the future, like Rosenquist, Cornell and Schwitters, De Mather’s work will have a richly nostalgic feel because of its inherent preservation of objects and images that are normally washed away by time as detritus. In that sense his work has an anticipatory ‘nostalgia for the future’.
For now though, they are noisy, vulnerable, exuberant and rich in layering and stray meanings.
Rodney Forbes, Churchill 2012
Director, Gippsland Centre for Art and Design
Faculty of Art Design & Architecture, Monash University
Director, Gippsland Centre for Art and Design
Faculty of Art Design & Architecture, Monash University
Back & Forth, Acrylic, spray enamel, oilstick and collage on canvas, 107cm x 69cm, 2011.
Dig, Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick, collage and road sign on canvas. 200cm x 122cm, 2011.
Edit, Acrylic, spray enamel, collage and plastic letter on canvas, 200cm x 122cm, 2011.
Inside, Acrylic, chalk and collage on canvas mounted, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Outside, Acrylic, ink and collage on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Grid, Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick, collage and road sign on canvas, 200cm x 122cm, 2011.
Quarantine, Acrylic, spray enamel and oil stick on canvas, 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
DJR, Acrylic, spray enamel, oilstick and collage on canvas, 144cm x 93cm, 2011.
Mirror, Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
Old School, Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas, 144cm x 93cm, 2011.
Safety Goggles (I), Acrylic, spray enamel, collage and wire-frame glasses on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Safety Goggles (II), Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Safety Goggles (III), Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Safe to Leave, Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on marine ply 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
Safety, Acrylic and spray enamel on road sign, 125cm x 95cm, 2011.
Captain Safety Pants, Acrylic, spray enamel, charcoal and collage on canvas, 140cm x 140cm, 2011.
The Sounds of Safety, Acrylic, spray enamel and charcoal on canvas, 90cm x 90cm, 2012.
With the Safety Off, Acylic, spray enamel and collage on marine ply, 90cm x 90cm, 2012.
Safety in Numbers, Acrylic, spray enamel, charcoal, collage and road signs on marine ply, 165cm x 165cm, 2011.
Consumption (II), Acrylic and spray enamel on exterior ply, 60cm x 60cm, 2011.
Consumption (I), Acrylic on exterior ply, 60cm x 60cm, 2011.
Hyper (contrast), Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 102cm x 92cm, 2011.
Green, Acrylic, spray enamel, conte and collage on canvas, 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
GT (Study), Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
GT, Acrylic, spray enamel, oilstick, charcoal and collage on canvas, 90cm x 90cm, 2011.
JKB Bandit, Acrylic, spray enamel and oilstick on canvas mounted on exterior ply, 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
Storyteller (Study), Acrylic, spray enamel and oilstick on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Storyteller (Study), Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Storyteller (I), Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 102cm x 92cm, 2011.
Storyteller (II), Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 102cm x 92cm, 2011.
Phantom Study (I), Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas, 30cm x 30cm, 2011.
Phantom, Acrylic, spray enamel, collage, cardboard and plastic masks on canvas, 90cm x 60cm, 2011.
Caelum, Acrylic, spray enamel, oilstick and plaster on canvas, 200cm x 122cm, 2012.
Caelum (Black), Spray enamel on canvas 30cm x 30cm, 2012.
Caelum (Blue), Acrylic, spray enamel and collage on canvas 30cm x 30cm, 2012.
CMW, Acrylic, spray enamel and oilstick on canvas, 140cm x 140cm, 2012.
Creature of the Night (I), Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick and collage on canvas, 90cm x 60cm. 2012.
Creature of the Night (II), Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick and collage on canvas, 90cm x 60cm. 2012.
Double Creature, Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick, chalk, conte and collage on canvas, 90cm x 90cm. 2012.
Creatures of the Night, Acrylic, spray enamel, oilstick and collage on canvas, 122cm x 200cm, 2012.
Exquisite (My Magdalena), Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick, and collage on marine ply, 120cm x 120cm, 2012.
My Magdalena, Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick, charcoal and collage on canvas, 200cm x 122cm, 2012.
Uber, Acrylic and spray enamel on canvas, 200cm x 122cm, 2011.
Uber (construct), Acrylic, spray enamel, oil stick and collage on canvas, 120cm x 120cm, 2012.
