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Collection

An image of Clouds #2 by Matthys Gerber
Alternate image of Clouds #2 by Matthys Gerber

Matthys Gerber

(Netherlands, Australia 1956– )

Title
Clouds #2
Year
1995
Media category
Painting
Materials used
oil on polyester
Dimensions

300.0 x 189.0cm

Signature & date
Signed l.r., oil "Gerber". Not dated.
Credit
Purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales Contempo Group 2001
Accession number
362.2001.2
Copyright
© Matthys Gerber
Location
Not on display
Further information

Gerber is one of Australia's most interesting conceptual painters and has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally through the 1980s and 1990s. Gerber takes familiar genres from painting as his subject - realist portraits, romantic landscapes, abstraction - and overloads them to create a saturated and at times surreal version of the same genres. At the same time, Gerber's technical facility and the appeal of his evocative subjects prevents the work from being purely ironic.

Gerber was born in the Netherlands in 1956. He immigrated with his parents to Australia in 1972. Gerber cites his European heritage as being of importance to his painting. From the great European Romantic artists through Surrealism to Richter, Gerber draws on a rich vein of references. He also cites Warhol and his use of ready-made pop culture subjects for art, as a major influence.

These cloud paintings are key works in Gerber's oeuvre, marking the transition point in his practice from hyper-realist painting to abstraction. They also relate to a series of Rorschach paintings and paper cut outs he did prior to these paintings, psychoanalysing the viewer's predisposition to create associations with the subject matter of painting. Whereas 'Clouds #1' is more abstract; the billowing, fleshy forms of 'Clouds #2' suggests human faces and bodily orifices in both a humourous and surreal play on our habit of reading things into the forms that clouds take.

Gerber's 'Clouds' recall the history of romanticism from Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" through Constable's cloud studies. However, they also recall the kitsch 70s posters for the bedroom walls of bonged out teens. There is something about clouds, which like sunsets, are almost possible to take seriously as a subject for art. And yet here they are: lush, billowing, romantic, oscillating between being painfully kitsch and evocatively sublime.

Bibliography (6)

George Alexander, Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 'Popism and screen culture', pg.204-245, Sydney, 2006, 15 (colour illus.), 224, 225 (colour illus.). illustration on pg.15 is a detail

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales Annual Report 2002 2002, 'Year in review', pg. 8-25, Domain, 2002, 12, 24.

Pamela Hansford, Matthys Gerber, Sydney, 1995. no pagination

Alison Kubler, Sebastian - contemporary realist painting 2000, Surfers Paradise, 2000, 7-8. no catalogue numbers

Sarah Cottier Gallery, 1995 1995, 'March - Matthys Gerber', Sydney, 1995, (colour illus.). no pagination

Editor Unknown (Editor), Mono Poly - Matthys Gerber 1998, Adelaide, 1998, (illus.). no pagination

Exhibition history (3)

Matthys Gerber, Sarah Cottier Gallery, Paddington, Mar 1995–Mar 1995

Mono Poly - Matthys Gerber, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, South Australia, 06 Mar 1998–29 Mar 1998

Sebastian - Contemporary realist painting: