MRA Gallery Opening: Rex Turnbull

If you’re a Sydneysider and not already aware of Mitchell Road Auctions/Antiques and Design Centre, I may be about to become your favourite reviewer on Arts Hub. Why, even the lamest of my past efforts will rise up from where they fell flat and skip lightly from your memory. “No, really,” you’ll say – “all is forgiven.”

An iconic landmark in the city’s inner west, MRA exists in two parts; the lower floor houses Mitchell Road Auctions, where you’ll find actual bargains on everything from antique furniture to vintage electricals, bicycles to bric-a-brac. Upstairs is Mitchell Road Antiques and Design Centre, comprising more than 40 dealers specialising in antiques from the 1950s-70s in particular, though if you’re after a gramophone or a pair of World War I flying goggles – well, you might be in luck there, too. Since it changed management in September, there’s even a café on weekends so that you can sit, and, over the rim of your latte, eye off that 1960s James Bond action figure that you’ve only just realised you desperately need...

Now, there’s a third reason to visit: as of last week, MRA Gallery is a new, affordable space for established and emerging artists. For the next fortnight, its first exhibition will feature a collection of paintings by Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Rex Turnbull.

Turnbull’s work is fascinating, I think, engaging on both a surface and a deeper level, in its meaning and construction.

‘Turnbull’s approach to painting sits somewhere between superrealism and the more theatrical and atmospheric works of American modern realism epitomised by Edward Hopper,’ writes artist and critic Greer Honeywill. ‘The landscape, and the structures Turnbull places upon it, barns, derelict shedding, dwellings and corner shops are all lovingly portrayed. [...] The foreground, middle distance and distance are all treated with the same attention to detail that at once flattens the canvas while, paradoxically, not diminishing the illusion of depth. This approach introduces an element of the graphic, perhaps even a suggestion of the naïve that in turn contribute to the enigmatic and emotional qualities of the composition.’

In its placement of figures against an often stark, geometrical landscape, Honeywill also notes how Turnbull’s work evokes that of Australian painter, Jeffrey Smart. This is certainly evident in paintings such as The Post Boy (pictured), though I think Turnbull’s work is lighter somehow, less haunted. There’s even an appealing sense of humour in paintings like Long Term Parking – Broken Hill, which is included in the exhibition and can also be viewed in the gallery section of his website: http://www.rexturnbull.com/.

It’s never the same as seeing it in person, of course, so you still have three excellent reasons to pay a visit to Mitchell Road Auctions/Antique and Design Centre over the next couple of weeks. Just keep your hands off my James Bond doll.

MRA Gallery Opening
An exhibition of works by Rex Turnbull
Mitchell Road, Alexandria
Now showing until November 9