INSIDE AND OUTSIDE| RECENT PAINTINGS OF GEOFFREY DE GROEN
5 - 27 SEPTEMBER 2015
Since his first solo at Watters Gallery in Sydney, 49 years ago, Geoffrey de Groen has been exploring the nature of painting. Born in Brisbane in 1938, Geoffrey was raised and educated in Sydney. Between 1957 and 1965 he attended classes at the Julian Ashton School and the North Sydney Technical College, and he completed his studies under Wallace Thornton at the East Sydney Technical College.
In the late 1960s, under the initial patronage of English architect John Pawson, Geoffrey left Australia to travel abroad, spending the years between 1968 and 1973 teaching and exhibiting in England, France and Canada. On his return to Australia he wrote for the National Times, The Canberra Times and Art International while continuing to teach and exhibit. Geoffrey taught at the Canberra School of Art from 1973 to 1977 and at the National Art School, East Sydney Technical College, until 1985 when he stopped teaching to paint full time. In 1992 he moved his studio to Taralga in New South Wales.
In 1999 and 2009 the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery mounted exhibitions of recent works by the artist. In 2000 Geoffrey was the recipient of the Hesketh and New England Regional Art Museum Overseas Fellowship. Later, in 2003, the New England Regional Art Museum mounted an exhibition of twenty-five paintings by the artist that are held in its permanent collection. In 2011, the Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery staged a selected retrospective of Geoffrey’s career, Images from the Cage of Time, curated by Wally Caruana.
De Groen's work is represented in numerous institutional collections including those of the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
Inside and outside presents a selection of recent paintings that eschew figuration yet are suggestive of landscapes and physical forms present in nature. In these paintings, de Groen constructs a series of visual dilemmas that engage and challenge the viewer to explore their own individual reading of each work, without direction or prompt other than through the paint itself. The process mirrors the artist’s mode of working: paintings may be revisited over a period of a year or more, or created in a day. The end result is unknown at the beginning, and the titles of the paintings represent the day when, to put it in de Groen’s words, ‘a painting is abandoned’.
The exhibition, which was curated by Wally Caruana, opened at the Nancy Sever Gallery on Saturday 6 September 2015 and closed on 27 September. For further informationabout available paintings from the exhibition please contact Nancy Sever at nancy.sever@iinet.com.au or Tel 02 6239 5434. The Gallery is open Wednesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm.
Paintings included in the exhibition currently available for purchase:
(for details of the works, please hold cursor over the image)
Selected solo exhibitions
1966 Watters Gallery, Sydney
1967 Watters Gallery, Sydney
1968 University of Sydney
1969 Bonython Galleries, Sydney
Eton College, Windsor, England
1970 University of Western Ontario, Canada
1971 Rothmans Gallery, Stratford, Ontario, Canada
1972 Bonython Galleries, Sydney
1973 Theatre Centre Gallery, Canberra
Llewellyn Gallery, Adelaide
1973 Reid Gallery, Brisbane
1974 Reid Gallery, Brisbane
Narek Galleries, Canberra
1975 Goethe Institute, Canberra
1976 Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne
Solander Gallery, Canberra
1977 Coventry Gallery, Sydney
1981 Coventry Gallery, Sydney
Gallery Huntly, Canberra
1982 Hogarth Gallery, Sydney
1983 Milburn Gallery, Brisbane
Stadia Graphics, Sydney
1984 Solander Gallery, Canberra
Milburn Gallery, Brisbane
1985 Stadia Graphics, Sydney
1987 Narek Galleries, Canberra
Bonython-Meadmore Galleries, Adelaide and Sydney
1989 Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
1991 Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
1994 Solander Gallery, Canberra
Olsen Carr, Sydney
1995 Espace Alliance, Sydney
1998 Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
1999 Beaver Galleries, Canberra
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW
Mary Place Gallery, Sydney
2000 Gallery East, Perth
Mary Place Gallery, Sydney
Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
Glenmore Galleries, Paddington, Sydney
2002 Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2003 New England Regional Art Museum, NSW
Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2004 Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2005 Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2006 Heiser Gallery, Brisbane
Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2007 Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
cvZ Heiser Gallery, Brisbane
2009 Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW
2010 Heiser Gallery, Brisbane
2011 Images from the Cage of Time, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra
Paintings, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
2012 New paintings, Chapman Gallery, Canberra
2013 The Path to the Open, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
2015 The Space of the Secret, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
Selected group exhibitions
1967 Survey 7, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney
1968 Survey 8, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney
1969 Terminus 69 (with Patrick Heron and Roger Hilton), Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford, England (Director: Nick Waterlow)
1970 Seven Artists, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Thirteen Artists, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Toronto, Canada
1972 Four Artists, Rothmans Gallery, Stratford, Canada
1973 Four Painters, Bonython Gallery, Sydney
1974 50 Years of East Sydney Tech, Bonython Gallery, Sydney
1975 Survival Kits, Ewing Gallery, Melbourne
1985 The Subject of Painting, Art Gallery of New South Wales
1993 Translations, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart
Allen Allen & Hemsley Collection, Sydney
1996 Australian Contemporary Art Fair
1998 Australian Contemporary Art Fair
Art & Furniture of the 1960s, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
Modern & Contemporary Australian Art, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
2012 Abstrakt Bilder, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
2013 Chroma: The Jim Cobb Gift, Orange Regional Gallery
Collections
Allen Allen & Hemsley (now Allen Arthur Robinson)
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Baker & McKenzie Collection
Blue Mountains Grammar School
Griffith University
Kings School, Parramatta
National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Victoria
New England Regional Art Museum
Newcastle Regional Art Gallery
Queensland Art Gallery
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
University of Canberra
University of Western Ontario, Canada
Bibliography
Bonython, Kym, 1970, Modern Australian Painting 1960-1970, Adelaide: Rigby
Bonython, Kym, 1975, Modern Australian Painting 1950-1975, Adelaide: Rigby
Campbell, Jean, 1983, Australian Watercolour Painters 1780-1980, Adelaide: Rigby
Germaine, Max, 1979, Artists and Galleries, Sydney: Lansdowne
Hall, Rodney, 1975, Australians Aware, Sydney: Ure Smith
McCulloch, Alan, 1996, Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Melbourne: Hutchinson
McCulloch, Alan, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, 2006, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Melbourne: Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press
McGillick, Paul, and Corbally Stourton, Patrick, 2001, Signs of Time: One painting in one hundred parts by Geoffrey de Groen, Sydney; Corbally Stourton Contemporary Art
Ure Smith, Sydney, 1969, Present Day Art in Australia, Sydney: Ure Smith
Grants, commissions and awards
1969 Artist-in-Residence, Power Studio, Paris
1975 Mural commission, National Capital Development Commission, Canberra
1975-77 Australia Council Grant, Australia-Japan Foundation
1995 Kedumba Drawing Award
2000 The Hesketh and New England Regional Art Museum Overseas Fellowship
2005 Kings School Art Prize
Publications
De Groen, Geoffrey with Leah Mackinnon, 1978, Conversations with Australian Artists, Melbourne: Quartet Books
De Groen, Geoffrey, 1984, Some Other Dream: the artist, the artworld & the expatriate; conversations with Janet Alderson, Robert Hughes, Max Hutchinson, Robert Jacks, Bruce Latimer, Clement Meadmore, Jeffrey Smart, Stelarc, John Stringer, Sydney: Hale & Ironmonger
Teaching positions
In the United Kingdom, 1968-70:
Lecturer and teacher in Fine Art at:
Birmingham College of Art
Exeter College of Art
Harlow Technical College
Leeds College of Art
Maidstone College of Art
Newcastle College of Art
Winchester College of Art
Visiting Lecturer at:
Brighton College of Art
Edinburgh College of Art
Eton College, Windsor
Harrow School of Art
Leicester College of Art
Nottingham College of Art
Oxford College of Art
Ravensbourne College of Art
The Greater London Council
Whitney College of Art
In Canada:
Instructor in Fine Art and Basic Design, 1970-72 at Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology, London, Ontario.
In Australia:
Teacher/ lecturer in Fine Art, Canberra School of Art, 1973-77
Teacher, Fine Art, Kogarah College of TAFE, 1978
Teacher, Fine Art, Gymea College of TAFE, 1979-80
Teacher/ lecturer Fine Art, National Art School, East Sydney Technical College, 1981-85