Outstract
Works from the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery Collection

Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery has a collection of many abstract works largely thanks to the Dr. Morry Rottem Donation in 1980, the Dr. Paris Lovett Donation in 1994 and the Max Miller Donation in 1982.

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The Sanskrit root of the word out refers to ‘higher’ or ‘upper’ while the Latin root defines out as “all the way to, without interruption”.  Tract (derived from abstract) stems from the latin word trahere ‘to pull, draw, track or draw out’. This symbiotic title, created for the premise of the show, creates a framework for understanding these works as marks made, scratched, pulled and applied without interruption. They investigate modes of representation in space; a space ostensibly read here as the Australian Outback that is also a space that is potentially transcendent.

The lengthy argument between abstraction and representation for the duration of the 20th century, is superseded by immersion and the understanding of learning how to learn a language of the abstract. 

Beginning with Frank Hodgkinson’s, The Arnhem Experience (1980) & Kakadu Rock and Eucalypt (1983) and John Olsen’s, Earth Hold we begin to understand the human tendency to represent physical objects and existing form through artwork. These works hover between abstraction and figuration; clearly borrowing form from land patterns and rock art and while we attach to certain decipherable pictorial elements, an intuitive and experimental approach with variation in colour and printing suggest more than pictorial representation and perhaps doubles as an enquiry of perspectives and subjective responses to places and things. It is here we are posited in the Australian outback and primed to view the rest of the show with a deeper reflection on both our environment and the immutable forces explained through more symbolic and systematic definitions of representation in the abstract works of the Broken Hill City Collection.  

Representation is a contested site, not a stable given. It is connected to perception, which briefly, is the interpretation of sensory information. This often occurs seamlessly, unknown to the observer. Artists are investigating this juncture. Abstraction is one method of exploring this and as such abstraction is a system to be learned. In art theory, abstract works are unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world. We see in Outstract abstraction working as a structure that enables communication, in this instance, an essential experience; experience of immersion in an Australian landscape. This asks of you to mirror this process inside the gallery; to understand the exhibition as a unified whole. 

In Victor Majzner’s Kafka Series (1976) and David Rankin’s Landscape – Mungo Walls of China (1983) we see opposite approaches to the same conundrum of representing vast immersive experience . For our purposes, Majzner, in his prints, exemplifies a process of distillation with the absence of obvious markings whereby the viewer is forced to understand the subtlety of present marks; marks which would otherwise be read as insignificant textural ground, as suddenly important. Rankin’s work presents a particular landform in Mungo National Park in a chaotic and busy manner, the totality of which is a confusing labyrinth of marks lacking the usual cues of pictorial depth. Perhaps we are required to unify this excess of information and obvious out-markings to search for a way to comprehend this muddiness. While differing in approach, both artists here demonstrate the endless multiplicity of mark-making; taking away our certainty, challenging our endless capacity and desire to ‘make-sense of’.

Here, we begin to understand the difficult task at hand, one that requires the dedication of learning a new language and the evolution of one’s own sense of perception. For the purpose of this perception, treat this gallery as one that parallels what the outback landscape was/is for these artists. Immerse in the Outstract.

David Rankin, Box in the Scrub (scrub and rocks series), 1976.
Etching, A/P. Donated by Max Miller, 1989.
1989.0053