Barry Tate & Matthew Clarke

Fox Galleries is proud to present Barry Tate and Matthew Clarke, to launch The Winter of Disconnect: The Great Indoors exhibition.

Barry Tate presents a series of paintings and ceramic vanitas as installation pieces. Large-scale ceramic totems, incorporating ornate hand-crafted furniture that conjure a sense of luxury. The artworks compound symbols of opulence such as grapes, flowers, porcelain plates and antique crafted furniture. Humorously exploring the follies of pleasure with extravagant detail and distorted domestic scale, they teeter on functionality but inevitably delight with grand aesthetics. Through the domestic lens, the installation will explore ideas of production, fodder and advancements in global civilisation, reflected in society today, now more than ever.

“My latest work was done during the lockdown period of the past few months, the concept is a amplification of previous themes which is all about regrowth , and the cycle of life and death. “

Matthew Clarke presents a series of new paintings and sculpture inspired by his direct descendant Captain Thomas Henry Clarke. A larger than life figure. Clarke asks the question ‘Is that ok?’, to reflect on the seafaring and pioneering ancestry as a source of inspiration and resilience while staying at home.  Geometric patterns, vibrant colour and self- portraits provide an intimate timeline of Mathew Clarke’s great indoors.

“This exhibition is inspired by my direct descendant Captain Thomas Henry Clarke whose life legend was carried through 6 generations to me. A larger than life figure, born in North Folk England, 1815. Clarke married Mary Ellen Denton in 1844, from 1851-55 he was owner and master of Cornelius, a brig ship weighing 247 tons. Sailing continuously between Liverpool, England, Belfast and Portland, Victoria, carrying migrants and cargo, including items to sell in Portland and Port Fairy. Captain Clarke was responsible for funerals at sea, one voyage he reported 8 deaths. In 1854 Clarke was fined 100 pounds for importing three quarts of rum without paying duty. By 1855 Clarke had made the decision to settle in Portland and Mary Ellen accompanied him on his last trip from Liverpool to Portland, carrying enough cargo to set up three shops in Portland. While on a trading expedition, Clarke returned to find Mary Ellen died of typhoid. Outraged Clarke wrote a series of letters to the Portland Observer complaining about the squalid conditions in Portland. In 1856 Clarke bought 3,000 acres of land of the Henty family, surveying out the town of Marino where he built local stock yards, a general store, a hotel, the Church of England, the mechanics institute, a school and the construction coordination of the flour mill.”

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The Winter of Disconnect, the great indoors, Winter, is the second presentation in the Modern Seasons, the great curve publication series navigating a portrait of the four seasons. The four-part publication is a documentation of five Australian Visual Artists’ response to the undulations of abstracted time and causation in 2020.