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JH

Muted but Textured Frank Paintings

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Installation of Dale Frank at Gow Langsford, Lorne St Installation of Dale Frank at Gow Langsford, Lorne St Installation of Dale Frank at Gow Langsford, Lorne St Dale Frank, The boy came to call him Dad and brought coffee to him in bed every morning, 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, Over the last summer he took perverse delight in that we were made to eat eggs with every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, You can touch it, 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, French is not allowed in this house, was a phrase he often repeated, 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, His stepfather would make a habit of walking around the housenaked in front of him whenever his mother was away, and pissing off the verandah onto his Mother's..., 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, He reached out spiritually and physically to Johnny their Hungarian foreign exchange student, 2017, close up of detail, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, No one knew, 5 years ago when he was 12, he had taken his mother's tortoiseshell cat and its 3 kittens..., 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, Although livid with jealousy it wasn't hard for him to see why girls came over to swim with his son, 2017, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm Dale Frank, Although livid with jealousy it wasn't hard for him to see why girls came over to swim with his son, 2017, detail, aluminium, silver, varnish and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 2000 x 1500 mm

Mixed in are painterly smears and faint dragged brush marks on clear transparent resin, hovering just above the ‘satellite vistas' like delicate clouds, while under the ‘land'—now and then—we see flashes of tinted slivered mirror. The dominant greyish textures are extraordinarily dense, the colours more subtle, the compositions more adventurously lopsided—packed with organic movement and worked over ‘geological' surface.

Auckland

 

Solo show
Dale Frank

 

8 August - 1 September 2018

The dozen new Dale Frank paintings at Gow Langsford surprise with their shift away from intensely saturated colour and embracing of viscous, oozy, smooth transparent resins towards dominantly grey or silvery aluminium hues, and highly tactile, roughly textured, raw surfaces. They are less liquid now (like clear honey) and more like aerial landscapes—with cracked and flaked mudlike allusions; or clusters of wrinkled, folded and compressed, mini-mountain ranges.

Mixed in are painterly smears and faint dragged brush marks on clear transparent resin, hovering just above the ‘satellite vistas’ like delicate clouds, while under the ‘land’—now and then—we see flashes of tinted slivered mirror. The dominant greyish textures are extraordinarily dense, the colours more subtle, the compositions more adventurously lopsided—packed with organic movement and worked over ‘geological’ surface. Less watery now; they are like thick mud with drying cracks or wrinkles.

Because of their densely nuanced surfaces and pale tertiary colours, these very controlled (but spontaneously organised) paintings take time to carefully look over. They are amazingly rich in tactility, looking weather-beaten and organic. Every square inch seems busy, yet there is no sense of clutter. With the silvery metallic paint they come across as toxic, though indisputably delicately beautiful; noxiously exhilarating even, but creepily beguiling.

These unusually complex sandwiched works (that have drolly entertaining titles) with their resined over-surfaces placed on mirrors, underneath speak of earth and bark textures and ancient skin. Elemental qualities abound, while poured and frenetically agitated planes with intricately ‘embedded’ bubbly conglomerates determinedly seek our attention.

John Hurrell

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