Pro Hart's Australian outback brims with vitality
By Dewi Anggraeni
MELBOURNE (JP): My new acquaintance gave me a friendly yet appraising look. "I have met other writers too. I must say writers look just like other people," she said.
"Of course. Those who look particularly different are probably posing," I replied.
I then looked around for Pro Hart, the internationally known Australian painter and sculptor, in whose honor this painting exhibition was being launched. Ironically, among the illustrious crowd of invited guests in the function room of Ansett's Melbourne Golden Wing Lounge, Pro Hart was the least assuming of all. Flanked by his wife Raylee and sister Margaret, he looked rather surprised that I wanted to speak to him.
It took me a while to associate the paintings exhibited with the artist I had just met. The celebration of colors and images seemed incongruous with Pro Hart's tendency to shrug off questions about his works with, "I don't know. I just do that a lot".
Realizing that I would not be regaled with insightful stories about how inspirations came to him, I walked away and began to study the paintings.
Native of Broken Hill, a mining town in western New South Wales, Pro Hart's works reflect the life and soul of the place. They depict and even chronicle activities, ranging from the mundane everyday chores to events and festivities such as race carnivals and Christmas parties.
His paintings do not call for interpretation, but absorb us into their world. His people are not much more than a few strokes of brush in different colors, yet they are individuals with individual and collective moods. This interplay of individuality and collectivity portrayed so well in Pro Hart's paintings underlies the mores of the Australian outback community -- understatedness. It was this gradual realization that led me to understand the artist's lack of personal expansiveness.
Visually, his people are only a small part of the expanse of nature. Towering over the houses with wide verandahs and corrugated iron roofs and walls, beat-up old cars and wrecks, are the ubiquitous eucalyptus trees. Tall, slim and sticky.
The dry humor endemic in the Australian outback comes through in many of the paintings, almost as visible as the stark, sun- baked red soil. In The Miners Xmas Party for instance, the picture is alive with activities, gossip and various stages of drunkenness.
The most drunk of all are the four Father Christmases, in full red and white colors, obviously hired by different groups who eventually congregated in the common barbecue space. One Father Christmas is lying face down on the ground, one slipping precariously down the roof from a chimney, and two are in different stages of attempting to go down the chimneys of some houses. Ask anyone who has been to Broken Hill: the portrayal is so true.
His picture of everyday chores is anything but monotonous. In Wash Day, the men and women around the wet shirts, dresses, overalls and pants pegged upside down on the laundry lines, seem to be enjoying themselves, the men standing around talking to the women who do all the work.
Since insects are part of the world of Broken Hill, they are also the subjects of Pro Hart's art. In this exhibition, they are represented by two major works, Dragonfly and Dragonfly II. Unlike his people, his dragonflies are close-up and personal. They are detailed in glorious colors against a dark background.
Also close-up are his flowers. In Flowers, Spring Flowers, Flowers in a Red Vase, Wildflowers and Wildflowers II, the colors are so definite they look almost like relief art. Being a hay- fever sufferer, seeing those flowers in spring time, and in Australia, I nearly had a sneezing fit.
I noticed that all the works exhibited were mostly oil on board with several oil on canvas. Predicting him answering my query on his medium with, "I don't know. I just used what was there", I decided instead to keep enjoying the world conveyed to me through the paintings. Besides, on the other side of the room, Pro Hart, clad in his overalls and cap, was painting an Ansett aircraft door, watched with interest and admiration by the guests.
During the evening, Spring Carnival, his work conveying the spirit of the event, was auctioned for A$9,000 for the Royal Children's Hospital. The other 25 paintings will remain on display in the Ansett Golden Lounge at Melbourne Airport until Nov. 24.
All these paintings are for sale, handled by Greythorn Galleries, where they are usually housed.
Pro Hart, now 69, has been painting and sculpting since 1950. His works are variously displayed in the National Collection Canberra, Adelaide National Gallery, the White House Collection, Buckingham Palace Collection and the Mertz Collection in the U.S., and many institutional and private collections.
I left when his overalls and cap were being auctioned. With my tendency to scratch my nose, I might finish up with a memento, dripping with sentimental value but beyond the reach of my pay packet.