A Secret Desire
Limited edition archival pigment print
71 x 81 cm (image size); 88 x 91 cm (sheet)
Edition of 99
AUD $1295
AVAILABLE
Memento from the Jade Garden
Limited edition archival pigment print,
80 x 70 cm (image); 96 x 82 cm (sheet)
Edition of 99
AUD $1295
AVAILABLE
Suzhou Garden Scene
Limited edition archival pigment print,
80 x 70 cm (image); 96 x 82 cm (sheet)
Edition of 99
AUD $1295
AVAILABLE
Summer Circus
Limited edition archival pigment print
71 x 88 cm (image); 88 x 91 cm (sheet)
Edition of 99
AUD $1295
AVAILABLE
Brushpots and Teacups on the Way Home
Limited edition archival pigment print
55 x 64 cm (image size); 74 x 74 cm (sheet size)
Edition of 100
AUD $500
AVAILABLE
Gift from the Country
Limited edition archival pigment print
84 x 74 cm (image size); 105 x 84 cm (sheet size)
Edition of 100
AUD $500
AVAILABLE
Last Light in the Forest
Limited edition archival pigment print
56 x 84 cm (image size); 72 x 92 cm (sheet size)
Edition of 100
AUD $500
AVAILABLE
Winding Rivers - Remote Places,
Limited edition archival pigment print
56 x 84 cm (image size); 72 x 92 cm (sheet size)
Edition of 100
AUD $500
AVAILABLE
Dean Home
Dean Home’s works are a sensual delight to behold. The artist is a master colourist who brings together an array of influences to create sumptuous Still Lifes. Entering in the worlds that Home creates feels like stumbling into Coleridge’s Xanadu, his paintings burst with rich jades and crimsons, exotic objects and enigmatic narratives.
Home’s artistic practice has always been deeply influenced by mythology. His earlier work invoked Charon, the ferryman who herded souls along the river Styx to the underworld. It is in these early paintings we can see the beginning of his experiments with light, dark and shadow and his fascination with the cycles of life and death.
In 2001 Home’s attention turned to the Still Life genre. The artist says “I picked up some Chinese porcelain bowls at auction, including one from the Kangxi period” (1662-1772). These objects opened up a new direction and a new vernacular for Home’s work. They became the cornerstone of his now recognisable style. He has relentlessly perfected his technique combining his gift for colour with carefully considered composition. Home plays with the Still Life genre; even though figures are no longer the explicit focus of his work he incorporates them through the characters that decorate the fabric and bowls. Employing the motifs and symbols in an ever-evolving set of fables and parables.
Home’s iterative vocabulary includes playful children, blooming lotus leaves and vertiginous mountains. He creates tension in his painting by imbuing his objects with competing sentiments. The focus of the foreground is dedicated to the realm of the senses; the sensual and the erotic: overripe fruits bursting with seeds and dripping with juices. The fecund images remind us that ripeness comes before rot. Like Dutch masters before him, Home employs fruit and flowers as a momento mori, a subtle reminder that all things are subject to inevitability of death. The backgrounds balance the compositions, reserved figures and static objects reference the strictures of culture and civilisation.
Home has an obsessive attention to detail. Curating the objects, perfecting the angle of light and photographing each scene up to 200 times as if sketches for his large painterly works. However, this process does not exclude the opportunity for improvisation. Home says he’ll often come across a flower or fruit and add it in to the composition on a whim. He refers to the joy derived from ‘extemporising’, composing and performing with the elements until they come together transcending their daily functions and combining to create a kind of theatrical beauty. Home’s work owes a debt to the masters from Velázquez to Caravaggio echoing their penchant for chiaroscuro and drama.
Biography & Education
Born 1961, Busselton, Western Australia
1979-81 Bachelor of Arts, Curtin University, Perth
1985 Lecturer, Drawing & Printmaking, Kalgoorie College WA
1986-87 Lecturer, Drawing, Ballarat University College
Selected Solo Exhibition
2020 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2019 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2018 Gallery One, Gold Coast
2018 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2018 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2016 Gallery One, Gold Coast
2016 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2016 Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery
2015 Gallery One, Gold Coast
2015 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2014 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2013 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2013 Arthouse Galleries, Sydney
2012 Paintbox Gallery, Canberra
2011 Arthouse Galleries, Sydney
2010 Metro Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Paintbox Gallery, Canberra
2008 Paintbox Gallery, Canberra
2007 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2007 Paintbox Gallery, Canberra
2006 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2005 Church Street Gallery, Perth
2004 Blacksphere Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2003 Qdos Gallery, Lorne
2003 Goya Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Church Gallery, Perth
2001 Goya Galleries, Melbourne
2000 BMG Galleries, Adelaide
New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
1999 Bulle Galleries, Melbourne
1997 New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
1996 Lyall Burton Gallery, Melbourne
1995 New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
1994 Lyall Burton Gallery, Melbourne
New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
Greenaway Galleries, Adelaide
1993 New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
1992 Bunbury Regional Art Gallery
1991 David Ellis Fine Art, Melbourne
New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle (Perth Festival)
1990 New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle
1989 David Ellis Fine Art, Melbourne
1988 David Ellis Fine Art, Melbourne
1984 Howard Street Galleries, Perth
Selected Recent Group Shows
2014 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Geelong Gallery, Finalist
2013 Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Finalist
2012 Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Finalist
2012 Australian Still Life -not just another bowl of flowers, Goulburn Regional Gallery
2006, 2004, 2002 & 1991 Mandorla Invitational Art Prize Perth
2004 Fleurieu Penisula Art of Food and Wine Prize, Finalist
2001 A Private View: Charles Nodrum Gallery
1998-1999 Stigma Touring exhibition: UTS Gallery, Sydney; Bendigo Art Gallery, Vic; Latrobe Regional Gallery, Vic; Hamilton Art Gallery, Vic; Drill Hall Gallery, ACT; Swan Hill Regional Gallery, Vic, Flinders University Art Gallery, SA.
1995 Moët & Chandon, Touring exhibition – all State galleries & NGA Finalist
1991 New Art, BMG Gallery, Adelaide
1989 City of Bunbury Art Gallery
1982 & 1983 TVW7 Young Artists Awards, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Finalist
Collections
Albany City Collection
ArtBank
Bayswater Council
Bunbury Regional Gallery
Busselton Council
Leeuwin Estate Collection
MLC Hawthorn
Murdoch University
National Australia Bank
National Portrait Gallery
New Norcia (Mandorla) Collection
Perth City Collection
Telstra Collection
Corporate & Private collections in Australia & overseas
Bibliography
Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch, Emily McCulloch Childs, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, 2006
Max Germaine, Artists and Galleries of Australia, 1990
Ed. Ken McGregor, Unfinished Journey, 2006
Stuart Elliott & Diane Roberts, Closet Circus: works from the Horn Collection 2008
Peninsula Hotel Group, The Peninsula Magazine, March 2014, Cover image & article, text: Anna Tsang
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