 |
  |
Artist ReviewDon DriverDon Driver - Since 1990 The Arthouse - 24 May – 12 June 2005 What is it that makes Don Driver’s art so appealing? Why is a goat skull nailed to the end of a 40 gallon drum an aesthetically appealing and enduring art object? With Spirit, Driver’s retrospective exhibition which toured New Zealand from 1999, exposed Driver’s oeuvre to new and existing audiences and secured his position as one of the leading figures of twentieth century New Zealand art. The relief sculptures and collages assembled for the Arthouse’s Don Driver: Since 1990 have been selected to represent Driver’s work since that seen in the retrospective and reveal his ability to find new ways to create the extraordinary from the ordinary. Driver delights in bringing objects together in unexpected and often alien relationships, challenging the viewer to consider both the original and invented contexts for the source objects and to re-examine their physical properties. Another Trophy (1990), the afore-mentioned skull piece, assumes the format of a hunting trophy, yet rather than a perfectly taxidermied specimen, the animal is bare of flesh and any trappings of life. Despite this clear statement of death, the well-proportioned arrangement of the goat horns against the circular support creates a work of curious elegance and disarming beauty. The circular format of this work is repeated in Open (1991), Toy (1992) and Universal (1996). Although the circular form is largely dictated by the shape of the source material (ends of plastic drums and circular sections of board) the motif makes a convenient reference to the tondo form, popular among Renaissance painters. Driver acknowledged this connection in two series of work from the 1990s entitled Tondo. Usually the preserve of religious painting, Driver has subverted the tondo format and in doing so challenges not only our assumptions of the purposes and relationships of inanimate objects, but our reverence towards art historical precedent. Farm-equipment and rural detritus recur in Driver’s work. This remains so, best demonstrated in Brand 1 and Brand 2 (both 2003). Brand 1 contains an element of the violence that has characterised much of Driver’s art. A cattle brand (with the initials “DR”), now static and secured, seems to have smashed its path through a swathe of off-cut blocks of timber, appearing fragile and temporary, as if newly scattered. The psychological power of colour is another constant element in Driver’s work. Brand 1 and Brand 2 share an acid blue tone as their base colour, as do Burst (2003) and the collage Coupling (2004). The tone is restless and slightly unnerving, triggering associations of surgical scrubs and clinical sterility. Traces of this colour are also evident as under-paint in Alpine (2003/4). This work also demonstrates an effective use of colour with a forest green background off-set by a pale pastel diagonal board stenciled with the text “Alpine”. To add a visual pun the board is positioned to suggest a mountain form. So what is it that makes Driver’s art so appealing? Driver makes us look and makes us think. He provokes us to challenge our presumptions and invests the inanimate with personality and value. Most of all, Driver makes us aware of the practice of looking and our methods of appreciating art. Christine Whybrew, May 2005 |