George Kennedy: The Same As Ever
George Kennedy’s inaugural solo exhibition is showing at Despard Gallery. VAULT caught up with the emerging artist to celebrate the occasion and hear all about his practice up to this point.
Image credit: George Kennedy, After Mabel Hookey, 2024, oil on canvas, 142 x 183 cm. Courtesy the artist and Despard Gallery, Hobart
Can you tell us about your inaugural solo show (congratulations, by the way!) at Despard Gallery? What’s it about, and conceptually, where did this collection start for you?
I’d been working on layered abstract drawings and paintings of my local landscape for about four years. They were a catalyst for Hookey Street, the first painting of the exhibition. It’s a monochromatic yellow, charcoal, acrylic, and oil painting of overlapping houses and cars towering upward. I had just returned from an artist trip out west and saw even more homes under construction than when I’d left. The sudden change was a lot to take in, so I worked through it with a painting, and that was what fell out.
From there, I didn’t overthink the concept and followed my nose. I’ve always had trouble maintaining interest in the same thing for too long, but there was something so engaging in these shifting suburban and natural spaces landscapes. I could only figure out what it was by painting it, and not the other way around.
Image credit: L-R George Kennedy, Hookey Street, 2024, oil on canvas, 183 x 122 cm; Mabel Court, 2024, oil on canvas, 183 x 122 cm. Courtesy the artist and Despard Gallery, Hobart
Taking a step back, how would you describe your process?
My process is really drawing-based. I get a lot of confused looks and some pretty funny interactions up in the bush or on the street, either drawing with a big brush taped to an old broom handle or hunched and squatting over a large sheet of paper, dipping bits of wire or twigs into ink and scratching away with those.
I’m a big fan of German-British artist Frank Auerbach and his attitude toward drawing. He’s informed my practice and process, creating stacks of fast and self-described not-very-good drawings. But they don’t need to be good, as he would say; they’re more of a vehicle used to understand place and space and a way of soaking in my surroundings. Back in the studio, I combine these fragmented ideas, working them into something coherent. The painting process can vary significantly between works and is intuitive overall.
Image credit: George Kennedy, The Serene Bit To The West, 2024, oil on canvas, 122 x 92 cm. Courtesy the artist and Despard Gallery, Hobart
Your work is exciting in that it’s shifted from quite abstract compositions stemming from your thoughts about your subjects into more figurative representations while retaining this strong sense of line, from monotonal to quite colourful. Which is more important to you: line or colour?
I think I’m guilty of giving everyone a bit of whiplash with each body of work I put out, myself included. I absolutely love to paint, but if it feels forced or I’m bored, nothing comes out. I wasted a lot of good paint this year by pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but I developed a much deeper relationship with colour.
That said, the line is still more important to me. It’s the framework that holds my entire practice together. It’s how I initially approach works and develop my ideas. The most straightforward lines are capable of conveying so much information and energy. I see beautiful lines everywhere, shadows cast from a wire mesh fence, silhouettes of tree branches, or rubber skid marks fishtailing up the highway. Colour and tone are important for setting the mood and depth within a painting, but I wouldn’t have anything to paint without my relationship to line.
Image credit: George Kennedy, Tower Of Bangers, 2024, oil on canvas, 122 x 92 cm. Courtesy the artist and Despard Gallery, Hobart
Can you tell us about your fascination with landscapes, urbanism, and the automobile? They are all prevalent motifs in your work.
First, I became fascinated with discarded artifacts in our natural spaces. I spent most of my childhood in nature and have an incredible fondness for it, but I was also fascinated by finding things that weren’t supposed to be there. When I was twelve, I found a clearing with a dozen cars, and they’re still there, like old friends. One of them has been relieved of its passenger-side door, though.
These interests evolved into outer suburbia four years ago when I moved to my current home of semi-rural public housing. It’s over the hill from where I grew up and where my “stack” drawings first started. These crude towers reflect a natural anxiety that’s present when everything changes so quickly. The sweeping plains surrounding us were immediately divvied up and developed into brand-spanking private estates and shopping complexes. And as the plains filled, development started to push up against the tree line. All the lost cars were rounded up by excavators and placed carefully in one giant, tidy heap. I recently snuck over there at night for a stickybeak and a draw; I reckon there are about 200 of them. I’ll probably save them for the next exhibition.