Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

A ngry P enguins NO. u Edited by MAX HARRIS paintings represent the unconscious realm, making psychological space seem coextensive with the pictorial. The most conspicuous way of doing this is to stage the pictures psycho-drama inside a conventional landscape, as Gleeson did in Structural emblems, amplifying the psychological tension by framing it with reality. Another way is to create a visual non sequitur, to discredit the previous reading of an image through a surprising juxtaposition — reflecting the Freudian notion of free-association. In Structural emblems, a small boy holds a balloon tied to a string; floating in the sky it is simultaneously a rising sun or moon. Gleeson's unusual composition contains no middle ground; everything is either nearby or far away. The distant horizon is remote and long ago, while the present is immediate, intimate and larger than life. Scale seems to signify importance and time, as it frequently does in pre- Renaissance art, where exaggerated dimensions are accepted matter-of-factly as the representation of a hierarchy or temporal scheme. The barren landscape evokes an emotional sensation — an emptiness, perhaps a mild agoraphobia. Occupying the centre of the picture, Gleeson's self-portrait bears the insentient expression of a statue. This image is psychological in a way atypical of his later work. While his own psyche is always the major source of his subject matter, in Structural emblems Gleeson did not solely access an unconscious reservoir of hallucinatory images and associations; he additionally made use of his conscious mind, inviting us to observe not only his art but his private thoughts and experience. Structural emblems is consequently a synthesis of his conscious and unconscious thoughts — like a day-dream. An interpretative reading, although generally irritating to surrealist sensibilities, is therefore logical in a painting such as this, where the artist has made deliberate use of his own personal history. With reference to this unique circumstance, Gleeson describes his most recent James Gleeson We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit 1940 Oil on canvas 40.7X 51.1cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne James Gleeson Coagulations on the maintenance of identity 1942 Oil on canvas 97.6x77.4cm Private collection Reproduced on the cover of Angry Penguins, no.4, 1943 Photograph courtesy Fryer Memorial Library, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 176 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965