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Anne
Wallace
Biography
Anne Wallace is often considered to be a 'young' Brisbane artist, yet she has recently been the subject of a mini-retrospective at Brisbane City Gallery, something that is usually reserved for artists in their mid-career.
Anne was born in Brisbane, Australia. Lives in Brisbane, Australia.
Wallace completed her undergraduate studies at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, receiving a bachelor of arts (Visual Arts) in 1990.
In 1993, she was awarded an Anne and Gordon Samsung International Visual Arts Scholarship which allowed the to complete a Master for Arts (Distinction) at the Slade School if fine arts, London during 1994 ¡V 1996.
In 1999, she was awarded a six-month residency at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, by the Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney and the Australian Council.
Stylistic Conventions, influence and Subject Matter
Her style reveals a gradual development and honing of her figurative style. The choice of such an arcane style is curious in the contemporary art world, as figuration has a position of being anathema to current debates on 'the body', which often takes a more critical view that stresses on the corporeality and performative aspects, rather than its appearance on canvas. The rendering of the appearance appearance, especially of the female form, has been linked problematically to the ¡¥gaze¡¦ and issues of feminism. In Wallace's paintings, any debate of this kind is ¡¥quietly arrested¡¦, as scenes reminiscent of the fifties retro-look mock mysteries and perverse romanticism take centre stage. Wallace instead revels in the perspective of ¡¥gaze¡¦, and her female protagonists, painted anonymously as part-self, part-observed, are the point of its convergence. This complicity raises several questions, specifically about the position of a woman artist who presents the female figure as object for the ¡¥gaze¡¦ and perhaps more urgently, who is representing the source of the ¡¥gaze¡¦. Through her paintings, Wallace has an inquisitive, piercing look at the almost paranoid obsession with 'self', but always move self-consciously as if being constantly watched. The paintings enact this state and the audience act out the position of the voyeur, looking from a distance.
"-----" (Detail), 1995
Oil on Canvas
Nicolas Poussin influenced her early work, with layers of allegorical meaning. 'Sour the boiling honey', for example, is overloaded with 'meaning', the symbolism pertaining to a youthful parody of Wallace as herself ensconced in a chair, oblivious to the painted activities surrounding her. In this painting lies the seed of what was to come, as theatricality (rather than the movement associated with 'theatre') becomes an increasingly important agent. Allegorical meaning disappears; vestiges of its language remains, but the storyline are gone. Another influence that is seen in Wallace¡¦s work is the time period reminiscent of that idealized by Hollywood films of the 1950's. The audience are enticed into an emotional atmosphere where the artist's feminine characters, with daydreams of beauty, glamour and romantic love contrast sharply with the psychological tension brought upon by scenarios containing suspense, uncertainty and erotic promise.
Wallace¡¦s use of the ¡¥gaze¡¦ creates two main effects, both somewhat misleading. Firstly, it gives the audience the impression that Wallace's work is autobiographical. Secondly, the gaze has been linked to cinema. The audience feels a kinship here, 'Oh, it's just like a cinema still', or 'What do you think is about to happen next?¡¦ forgetting entirely that these are paintings. The audience are seeing an interpretation, not an actual act. There is no scene before or after. It can also feeling can also be interpreted in reminscence to watching television, with rapid channel surfing comparable to the many and varied situations Wallace has depicted in her television-screen proportioned paintings. Wallace's paintings are also closely connected to the concept of deferral, where the next 'scene' is usually predicted according to a running script, a sentence, a word, where we attempt to predict what will happen next as the letters fall onto the page and 'meaning' is deferred until the commitment is made. The story is always unfolding towards closure, and most movies, television programs, and books are organised in this manner. In Wallace's case, this never comes. There is no closure, no denouement to give the viewer such satisfaction. The viewers create their own 'ending' which may or may not be similar to Wallace's intention. This is further reinforced by the painting's arrangement - hung in a linear fashion around the gallery - that, with its structural allusion to a sentence, ruptures any potential narrative through not making sense in a linear way.
She Is,
2001, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Another sense of unease comes not from Wallace's obvious interest in horror B-grade films and/or garish colours that background her often delicately posed and perfectly frocked figures, but the fact that the situations in which they are found bear a resemblance to situations of danger. It is the theoretical danger experienced second-hand through film or books, the anticipated but never acted-out danger, the danger that does not exist except in the viewer¡¦s minds. Viewed by themselves, the images are often akin to snap shots of everyday life and from it derives questions that state, ¡§who hasn't laid down on grass wearing their best clothes?¡¨; ¡§Who hasn't felt an intrusive gaze fixed firmly to their chest region?¡¨ Wallace suggests a particular fear or element through cropping certain ¡¥situations¡¦, which the viewer then continue to project as a dream or story halted in mid-turbulence. ¡§Increasing the cool frigidity of each scene, her painting technique is equally non-committal; the dispassionate rendering of each scene is as deadpan as her take on it.¡¨- Robyn Daw, Art Critic.
Damage,
1996
Oil on canvas
134 x 165cm
Subjective frame
The first impression that you get from viewing this artwork is the feeling of ominousness. Wallace uses dark shadows; colours that evoke negative responses (blue and green) and the image is creepy with in itself. The pale legs that have blood running along them, connotates that something is wrong. Blood is usually symbolic for pain and suffering, something horrible. The whole use of the shadowing creates the effect reminiscent of the 1950 film technique, film noir, to capture the eeriness of the horror B-grade films. The centring image of the legs is often female body parts that subject the male ¡¥gaze¡¦. The sexual tension is influence by the shortened length of the skirt. There is a shadow that is created by the skirt, evoke mystery of what is up the skirt that all this blood is derived from. The artist maybe is trying to state that the male gaze is painful.
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