Review | Katrina Rhodes at No Vacancy Gallery
No Vacancy gallery was crowded and noisy on opening night of ‘A Handful of Civilised Friends’, three of its walls hung with ornately framed paintings and photographs and the forth glass wall kept out the cold autumn night. Katrina Rhodes’ paintings make up three quarters of the exhibition and a final section features her photographs, vintage and water marked. At first glance the subject of her work appears to be an anthropomorphised history of monarch-like figures, a sort of royal portraiture. The anthropomorphising is in the form of ducks, instead of human heads, and human hands instead of wings. The brush work is fine and all have a subtle mysterious quality to them.
Above: Valentyne
Acrylic on cotton
Image from the26thletter.com.au.
Cordilia and Valentyne is a double portrait in two separate oval frames, a male and a female duck in ruffled collar and brocaded garments; they look at the viewer but are turned slightly towards each other. Valentyne has a rich green feathery face and strong gold beak. His shiny brocaded jacket is black and his ruffles white. He looks confidently at the viewer. Cordilia wears a crown and a three layered ruffle collar, her gown is heavily embroidered with silver, like her soft grey feathers. Unlike Valentyne’s confident persona, Cordilia seems shy and unsure. Her eyes are a soft brown and they speak of uncertainty.
There is definitely a tension in these paintings which comes from the divide between human and bird. It is this tension which prompts us to consider them more closely, to wonder at the royalty of the ducks and other birds in the series. To ponder how they came about and in what realm they rule. Rhodes may very well be questioning the portrait genre by changing the subject from human to bird, by placing a creature where we would usually see the nobility that keeps/hunts them.
An entire royal family has been imagined and brought to life in ‘A Handful of Civilised friends’. The young princess perhaps in Favourite things, the three handsome dukes might be seen in Le trois cuchon (The three pigs) and even the Queen herself in She dreams of men and foxes. We can imagine the relationship and family ties that might connect these characters. We can wonder at what worried Cordilia but not Valentyne. (I do not mean to suggest that Rhodes has a specific interest in royal families, this is my interpretation, the story I have envisioned from the fertile material in this exhibition.)
I particularly like the details in She dreams of men and foxes, which point to the Queen’s personality. Her red dress is full and plump in the style of 15th century noble Dutch gowns; it is richly detailed and layered with creams and black. The Queen carries a gun over her chest; her left hand touches it lightly. Her right hand rests near a tea set on a high table draped in silk and at her feet is a hare with long pointy ears looking inquisitively at us. It is hard to get a sense of her personality without these objects, her gaze is direct but reserved – giving nothing away as any good ruler should. She appears to be a practical and kind ruler.
The centrepiece of the show is Gents of a feather and it takes us further into Rhodes’ imaginary world. Three balloons sail freely above a misty grey city with domes and spires and a background of blue sky speckled with birds in flight. Each balloon is a different colour, a green one is prominent, followed by a yellow and then a soft pink one. Each balloon is as ornate as the gowns of neighbouring characters, they appear not to have flight mechanisms like a hot air balloon might, and in fact they are just the shape and design of a Faberge egg. The humour here lies in the obvious absurdity of ducks needing hot air balloons. To me, though, these balloons, which are devoid of gas and flame, might hover there indefinitely and it is the ducks that fly up, take a rest, and have a look at the world below. It is a fantasy after all, and one which turns our notions of order upside down. After all, why not have a giant Faberge egg that flies, it is the very realisation of decadence, and of power over the land dwelling creatures below.
There is no questioning Rhodes’ technical skill, it is brilliant. I feel something when I stand in front of her work, an eerie quiet which comes from the tension between the subject, a royal portrait, and the object itself, a duck personified as human. The finish on the paintings is impeccable, but something is missing. Is it the glass shine or the oil paint sheen we’ve come to expect from artists of the past who must interest Rhodes? However, this is not to suggest that this matte element detracts from the work, instead it altered my expectations. The painting as an object is so unlike the art of the past, it references it yes, but it also reminds us that it is different, representative of an artist living today. Just like the finish these characters don’t appear to fit a specific time, some of the gowns remind me of 15th century, but others seem newer. The riddle appears to be in solving how the characters relate, because I’m sure they do.
Besides the birds as human/humans as bird portraits Rhodes has included still lifes and one not so still life in which fruit, a bottle and feathers fly or float above a table of rich silk and intriguing objects in Open window. There is one portrait of man, Rocco D’Amore, and one portrait of a duck Equilibrium, and they hang sinisterly side by side. The gentleman manages to look less real than the family of royal ducks, as though he is the odd one out and the portrait painter commissioned knows this. He is lonely in the frame, surrounded by black.
The photographs, which hang together on one wall, play with the anthropomorphising theme further with sepia prints in gilded frames featuring more ducks in a variety of poses. Old and young ducks feature here; some are driving, sailing and or just standing as well as wearing a nun’s habit, a captain’s uniform and a child’s sailor suit. It’s a comic and eclectic mix. The photographs are not as accomplished as the paintings, but they do make an interesting contrast further adding to the element of time travel and alluding to a possible duck ancestry being catalogued.
‘A Handful of Civilised Friends’ runs from 22 April to 8 May 2011 at No Vacancy, 34 – 40 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne.
