2000

Having returned from living in Switzerland, and a divorce, I had no studio at the time in Australia, but was offered one in a wooden building with “tongue-in-groove” walls to which I stapled canvas (also being unable to afford or store “stretchers” in the short term). I was initially frustrated that the impression of the tongue-in-groove walls would persistently “show” through otherwise finished “botanical” works. I decided to just submit to it, and completed a series of tabletops in a vertical format like Chinese landscapes, working from the top of the canvas down the walls. Until I could afford the stretchers, some of the (more autobiographically interesting, in my opinion) paintings reveal the impression of the tongue-in-groove wooden walls on which they were made.  Richard Dunlop, 2000

“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of external signs passes on to others the feelings that one has lived through, so that other people are infected by these feelings but more importantly, experience them. It doesn’t happen often.” – Leo Tolstoy

“Paintings like Still Life with Pelican’s Head and Still Life of How to Start a War have a most mysterious and rare inner illumination, whereby you see into the picture plane.” – Adrian Ghenie

“A unique sense of place can still persist in the collective psyche of sprawling cities such as Brisbane. Brisbane is a state of mind as much as a place, and artists like Richard Dunlop are its guides.” Sue Smith Director University Collection UCQ