Click for exhibition catalogue

Now & Then shows Frank Nowlan’s eclectic thinking through his distinctive painting style. Nowlan treads lightly with heavy subject matter, addressing attempted political assassinations and a series on a local bushranger gang. The straight presentation leads to a wry assessment of these encounters and their settings.

Frank Nowlan is always looking, whether at historical images or the work of other painters. For the current landscapes he is looking from a train window as it travels across the Nullarbor. He is also reinspecting his knowledge of events as a history teacher. This exhibition shows divergent interests but the title Now & Then reveals an absurdist’s approach to the repetitions of history.

Very excited to announce our joint presentation with Galerie pompom for this years Auckland Art Fair 2019, 1-5 May. Stay tuned for more information.

Join us for the hottest show this year Scorcher!!!

The Egg & Dart will fire up the new year with a free BBQ and beers to celebrate it’s first exhibition for 2019.

Opening: Friday 11 January, 6-8pm
Catalogue available here…

Frank Nowlan’s latest suite of paintings takes a broad look at the subject of sport. This is significant. In 1964, injured while playing rugby league, Nowlan began privately painting images of football. He was then encouraged to continue painting by an art teacher and kept this secret from his team mates. He later set painting aside to pursue history teaching. Having retired from that vocation, Nowlan’s current approach to sport is wilfully diverse. He chooses subjects of interest and sets up painting challenges – how to capture the mass of a crowd looking over a velodrome or how to alter perspective to reveal more of the ground where the action takes place. Then the paintings start to populate: Bradman as the backyard cricketer, a boxer known as The Torpedo. Australia’s first rugby side. The crowd is also a character, a mass of repeated gestural marks circuiting whatever ring or field the play is taking place in. Some works are in response to historical prompts – an early photograph of Tolstoy playing tennis or a story of monkeys riding atop greyhounds in the 1930s. Other figures are anonymous and everyday, players in a local game or two women playing football. The overall Nowlan style is evident across the current collection but it is an added pleasure to see him exploring repetition and variation within a specific arena. This thematic play between figures and the sporting ground allows for Nowlan’s distinctive painting style to assert itself in new ways.

-Melody Willis

VIEW EXHIBITION CATALOGUE HERE

Shelter is one of those core needs along with air, food, water and clothing. But the house seeks to fulfil other functions: security, belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. In The Castle, three artists from different generations explore divergent ideas of home. Frank Nowlan uses it as a base for vernacular observation and deadpan characterisation. Rob Howe places the house within the streetscape, painting the overlap between light, cast shadow and gestural geometries. Christopher Zanko pares back and records housing types as markers of urban change. The Castle is an opportunity to view three significantly different painters initiating a conversation around ideas of home.