OVER BY THE KITCHEN WINDOW

GEORG WHELAN

I'm an Australian artist based in Brisbane. Working through figurative painting, film photography, drawing and text. My work observes rituals, constructed narratives and metaphorical depictions referencing a spectrum of sources from high/low brow art and its tradition, Iconography, religious art and more obscure elements of culture such as memes and bathroom graffiti.

My recent works are largely looking at the Australian identity through a post-colonial lens and are made in the genre of figurative painting. While I am a self-taught painter and what I do is really quite folky, I like to reference the academic history of painting and employ techniques and methods that are quite traditional while making space for more naive and abstract elements. While at a glance I have been told my work looks to be engaging in a sort of critical theory, and perhaps it does, but for me personally painting is mostly concerned in the process, I treat the tradition of painting as alchemy which can be learnt and the process itself as a meditation as much as a trade.