Rodney Pople is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Sydney, exhibiting regularly for over 30 years. His often large scale works aim to challenge societal norms by deliberately including provocative imagery or providing a candid assessment of taboo subjects. Previously this has included superimposing pornography into depictions of Venetian churches interiors, criticising the romanticised mythology surrounding young Australian soldiers and their commanding officers in the First World War, as well as his notorious Glover Prize winning artwork from 2012, featuring a small depiction of Martin Bryant at Port Arthur.
Pople describes his artworks as trying to break down the façade of a politically correct society, using a blending of fact and fiction to expose something that lies beneath the surface. Though his use if photo-media and over painted surfaces, Pople begins to distort and blur reality, as if our social order is on the verge of collapse.
Chiesa Della Salute was originally exhibited as part of Pople’s 2010 solo exhibition Altared, and includes his signature combination of photo media and oil paint, where its shifting surface suggests movement, distortion and a dreamlike realism.
Pople completed a Diploma of Fine Arts majoring in Photography from the Tasmanian School of Art in 1974 and later studied sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London in 1978 and the New York Studio School in 1979. Pople has won numerous awards artist including the 2016 Paddington Art Prize, the 2012 Glover Prize, 2014 Fishers Ghost Prize, 2009 NSW Parliament Art Prize and 2008 Sulman Prize. He has also been selected for the Archibald and Wynne Prize over twelve times since 2000. His work is held in collections nationally, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery.
RODNEY POPLE
Chiesa Della Salute 2010
archival photo & oil on canvas
198 x 132 cm
$22,500
PROVENANCE: Private Collection Hobart, Originally exhibited as part of Altared Despard Gallery 2010
