The inner northern Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, just a stone’s throw from the city, has long been a magnet for artists of virtually any given medium. For instance, the Fitzroy Art Collective’s group exhibitions and end-of-year parties strike me as events that the likes of David Bowie and Andy Warhol may have hung out at, and the Centre for Contemporary Photography continually displays the latest in photographic trends and explores the art form’s capabilities.
Another essential go-to for artists is the Rose Street Artists’ Market, offering stalls to the best in local artists, sculptors, jewellery-makers and clothes designers for over 20 years. Sometimes, artists at Rose Street decide to put their works in an art gallery, as Rose Street regulars Mac Hewitt and Ellen Giannikos are currently doing at SOL Gallery on Brunswick Street, sharing the gallery with fellow artists Anthony Jackman, Gerard Russo and Andrew Anka.
Hewitt and Giannikos, presented in separate but co-existing exhibitions, both explore themes of fantasy and escapism in their work and tend to feature a lot of animals, especially rabbits, butterflies and birds. Part of the reason for this is that the pair hold art programs for children and people with special needs, and these students regularly draw animals. Some are real, some not, but all become inspiration for Hewitt and Giannikos. Hewitt’s sublimely rendered artworks show both staggering technical ability (he has a background in digital animation) and, thematically, input from a clear mix of folklore from different parts of the world.
For instance, his character in the work Kangaroo looks Mayan or Incan, the bald character in Junior could be from almost anywhere and other characters are clearly Aboriginal Australians, such as in the work Rainforest, a piece with an effective mix of real and unreal. Some of Hewitt’s art reminds me of the works of Ainslie Roberts, especially 1973’s groundbreaking The Dreamtime Book (something for trivia nights – one of Roberts’ artworks is the Aboriginal man on the Australian $2 coin). While some of Hewitt’s work has echoes of Roberts, other pieces echo the work of Spanish fantasy artist Luis Royo or French sci-fi surrealist Mœbius. This diversity works and works exceptionally well.
Giannikos’ work similarly oozes fantasy and a love of colour, but her world is more like a child’s dreamland, albeit one with subtle adult symbolism. Her artistic style, compared to Hewitt’s work, is two-dimensional, and her recurring character, a grey, androgynous figure (or figures) gives Giannikos’ paintings the feeling of a dreamland simply by always having the character’s eyes closed. This way, it feels like the viewer is watching a dream in action, a dream in which the meaning or non-meaning of symbols and objects becomes a fluid, optional notion. In this way her exhibition flows, as the viewer, going from artwork to artwork, effectively goes from chapter to chapter in someone else’s dream.
Gallery owner and curator, award-winning artist Pimpisa Tinpalit, is exceptional at choosing artists’ work that will complement or effectively juxtapose one another, and four of the artists in this exhibition show wild displays of colour (with the exception of Russo’s work, which sits monochromatic, impressive and imposing in the window). Anthony Jackman’s artworks are nigh on pure abstraction – art in which nearly all recognisable features of form have been removed, leaving a landscape of loosely organised, dripping colours – in his own words, artworks that show ‘the dichotomy of order and chaos’. His paintings lie somewhere on the ever-shifting border where impressionism morphs into abstraction.
With the dreamlike worlds of Hewitt and Giannikos in the front rooms, Jackman’s relatively more conventional work in the main room serves as a comfortable, buffering conduit between them and Anka’s often wild, reality-tearing conceptual overloads, which lurk in the back room, waiting to pounce on viewers’ senses.
According to his website, Anka is inspired by Dadaism, and this comes as no surprise. As can be seen from his online catalogue, he is not one to shy away from striking, potentially confronting images, involving drugs, guns, corruption, religion and demons, although he does mix two Australian favourites, footy and Ned Kelly, in some of his works, invariably reminiscent of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings. Anka’s exhibition is like a collection of nice, family-friendly paintings that were given a handful of assorted hallucinogens – perhaps that’s why his show is called Random. It’s striking, powerful, unapologetic work.
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All in all, another diverse, quality collection of local Melbourne art. As they say, go and support your local artist. SOL has some of the best in Melbourne.
Artwork from Mac Hewitt and Ellen Giannikos, Andrew Anka, Anthony Jackman and Gerard Russo will be showcased at SOL Gallery until 12 May 2024.
