Anthony White comes from the gestural abstractionist school of painting that has emerged from the National Art School in the past decade. After spending time travelling on the Marten Bequest and the Friends of the National Art School (FONAS) Paris Studio Award, White has brought together a body of work which has a strength of colour, form and movement rarely seen in a painter his age. White has been a finalist in many of Australia's most respected prizes and awards, including the Brett Whiteley travelling scholarship, The Churchie emerging artist award and Art on The Rocks. White has also been a recipient of international programs in both New York and Paris. - Iain Dawson 2010
The work in this exhibition was made in residence at Australia's Storrier Onslow Studio, at the Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris. This studio award, enable me to paint and live in Paris for three months. The architectural surfaces of Paris are laden with centuries of graffiti, posters, filth and humanity. The works draw upon these references and the sense of transience, the passing of time, the organic and the antique'
Anthony White Catalogue Essay 2010
Layer by layer, colour by colour, he builds them up, painstakingly constructing the surfaces until finding the perfect texture. Anthony White comes from the gestural abstractionist school of painting that emerged from Australia’s National Art School in the last decade. It is a realm that in the cool post-pop, postmodern years seemed to fade from sight, at least for a while. But for White this was never an issue. He was not an artist to be subsumed by the variables of fashion – indeed, if anything fashionability was a thing to be ignored or, better yet, assailed by a wall of colour. After spending time painting in New York City over the past two years, White has brought together a body of work that reveals a passion for colour, form and movement rarely seen in a painter his age. The results are not unlike slices of the world uncovered by an archaeologist. He seems to absorb and then exhale the weight of the earth, both natural and man-made.
The sense of movement in the works reflects his own restless energy as he travels the world, capturing slices of the environment in which he finds himself. While it is easy to describe White as an abstractionist he is arguably more a stringent realist. When he paints the Seine in Paris he gets down into the dirty detail of a river assailed by centuries of industrial development. When he visits Au Bonheur des dames, rather than paint a romantic Parisian street scene, he unearths the dirt and grit of the aged metropolis. “I am fascinated by maintaining the spirit in painting,” White has stated. “Painting has been declared dead numerous times, but there is something in the finding of form through observation and abstraction which keeps me coming back for more. Now that painting has been freed from serving any moral, illustrative or religious purpose then the very essence of a painting could be revealed.”
A finalist in many of Australia’s most respected prizes and awards, including The Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship, The Churchie Emerging Artist Award and in 2007 he won The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship, which took him to New York. During 2009 White lived and worked in Paris at the Cité International des Arts as part of the Storrier/Onslow Studio residency made possible by the Friends of the National Art School. As well as showing with COMODAA in London, White will participate in The Leipzig International Art Programme and hold a solo show with the Iain Dawson Gallery in Sydney. Of his Sydney show White says: “The work in this exhibition was made in residence at Australia’s Storrier Onslow Studio, at the Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris. This studio award enabled me to paint and live in Paris for three months,” he says. “The architectural surfaces of Paris are laden with centuries of graffiti, posters, filth and humanity. The works draw upon these references and the sense of transience, the passing of time, the organic and the antique.”
Ashley Crawford Melbourne, Australia, 2010
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