Peter Ellis and Surrealism
July 2013
Melbourne artist Peter Ellis has been fascinated by animals since childhood. His interest in Surrealism emerged as a young teenager and these twin artistic interests have nurtured his imagination ever since. His current exhibition at RMIT Gallery A Head In A Hive Of Bees buzzes with wit, weird hybrid creatures and a playful but intellectual approach to the fantastical wonders of Surrealist imagery. He is also a musician, with a deep love of punk music. It’s a fitting soundtrack, somehow.
Evelyn: Say Dada! Why not? You have a long interest in Dada and Surrealism that ties in with your intense curiosity and love of ideas. Can you explain how this artistic movement has been so important to your work?
Peter: I see Dada and Surrealist thought not as an art movement but as a way of seeing and dealing with the world and existence on many levels. There is a direct connection to romanticism, ancient cultures, spiritual thought and animism in Surrealism. The use of dreams, chance, humour, paradox, the affront to reason, a constant struggle against constraint and conventionalism. Dada and Surrealist thought externalises obsessions, expresses the subconscious and allows for the need for myth. Dada and Surrealist philosophy is an encouragement to freedom.
Evelyn: An artistic spirit is unbounded by medium, don’t you think? We are fascinated by your interest in punk music and indeed making music yourself and playing in a band. How does the music interest impact on your visual literacy?
Peter: I have played “Dada Guitar” since 1975 and have made 20 CD recordings with Dr. Phil Edwards under the name of AND – a term invented by Phil in the early 90s to describe unrehearsed sonic and music collaborative performances by visual artists. In the punk days I played with Jon Cattapan, Michael Narozny, Mark Moran, and Peter Kartsounis and others. AND is a collaboration with artists through spontaneous free sonic interaction. Artists such as Jon McKinnon, Louise Weaver, Jon Cattapan, John Aslinadis, Gracie Edwards, Richard Holt, Andrew Seaward and many others have performed as AND. The CDs have collaborative visual packaging.
Evelyn: Can we ask you to get into your time machine and travel back to New York and London in the late 70s? How did this trip impact on the young Peter Ellis and his view of art and place in the world of art?
Peter: I have had the privilege of travelling overseas many times. In 1979 I backpacked around Europe but spent most of the time in New York, London, Detroit. This was a vital time for viewing the art that I had only seen in reproduction, or read about. I made pilgrimages to The James Ensor Museum in Ostend Belgium, Rimbaud Museum in Charleville, to Castelfranco with Jon Cattapan to see Giorgione, then Philadelphia to see the Duchamp collection, all the great New York Museums and the major exhibition of the Picassos before they were formed into the famous retrospective at MOMA the following year.
Simultaneously the music was revolutionary, punk, new wave, the beginnings of new romantics and two-tone and ska. Blues players like John Lee Hooker, Jonny Shines and Robert Junior Lockwood; Clifton Chenier the king of Zydeco, all living treasures in 1979. In London it was the Marquee, Lyceum Ballroom, Electric Ballroom for Ruts, UK Squeeze, Specials, Selector, Madness, Talking Heads, B52’s, Iggy Pop, Psychedelic Furs, Pretenders, and many more. There was a sense of excitement and a DIY attitude. It must have been similar in Berlin or Cologne or Zurich in the Dada period; this first international trip was very inspiring.
My work was maturing at the same time as the Trans Avant Garde and Neo Expressionism was emerging in the early 1980s. Returning to Melbourne I was part of an exciting new period in Australian art. I had work purchased by the NGV in 1980 and Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1982 and Australian National Gallery.
Evelyn: You incorporate collage and automatic drawing techniques and obsessive sketching, and you use traditional Japanese Skikishi panels as well – how do you take sketches and turn them into artworks?
Peter: The smaller drawings and paintings are spontaneous and automatic and create a play of thoughts. From these works characters, objects, marks and associations occur that feed the larger works. Images may be derived from techniques such as Decalcomania or taking in visions from found or fabricated stains or marks. Often I discover a creature that becomes an actor in a larger painting or drawing. In this exhibition there are ducks, penguins, scallops, oysters, bears, strange mechanical devices involving shape shifting, scientific experiments gone wrong, ghosts, abstract forms, all sorts of creatures. There is a sense of unconscious thought initially in these works which is followed by conscious analysis and research inspired by these drawings to create another layer of associated imagery from a wide variety of sources.
Evelyn: Chance encounters, or accident, chance meetings, or design, the chance juxtaposition of image and text – how does chance play its part in your artworks? And does this mean that by utilising chance, you don’t plan?
Peter: The chance Zen-like automatic drawing takes place usually in small drawings and sketchbooks without preconceived ideas. This process exploits the mechanism of inspiration – these works are then extended and researched into images in a more formal way. You try a variety of strategies to make art, it’s always changing. Through looking and making lots of work one develops a limitless vocabulary, a mental storehouse of images and information locked away in the recesses of the imagination.
A Head In A Hive Of Bees: Selected Drawings by Peter Ellis shows at RMIT Gallery until August 17.
Images:
All Photography by Mark Ashkanasy
Other Articles You May Like
When everything old is new again: Volker Albus talks design
As Professor Volker Albus prowls around the various gallery spaces at RMIT Gallery, unpacking some 63 large crates, and pulling…
Galleries
Weather
20°Latest Edition
