{"id":8380,"date":"2015-12-23T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T08:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/?post_type=portfolio&p=8380"},"modified":"2015-12-23T16:28:21","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T08:28:21","slug":"see-the-naked-truth-by-shannon-teoh","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/portfolio-item\/see-the-naked-truth-by-shannon-teoh\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSee: The naked truth\u201d by Shannon Teoh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

New Straits Times, 22 September 2006
\nSee: The naked truth
\nby Shannon Teoh<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s a rare sight in Malaysia but the bold, brazen and bare-breasted await at Wei-Ling Gallery in Brickfields. SHANNON TEOH speaks to Stewart McFarlane, Australia\u2019s premier figurative painter.<\/p>\n

To begin with, it\u2019s important that you know that there will be nudity. Full frontal even. So, please exercise your own discretion.<\/p>\n

Even the artist himself was kind of guarded about the exhibition, agreeing with me that the gallery director, after whom the gallery is named, was very bold to do a show like this in her gallery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWei-Ling is very brave to allow me to show nudes here. It\u2019s much easier to have a show like this in Australia. So, people should expect to be a bit surprised but there\u2019s joy in the colour and after awhile, you can relate to the humanity of the models.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to shock. I\u2019m just a very traditional artist, following what artists have done for centuries. It\u2019s nothing outrageous,\u201d Stewart McFarlane explains.<\/p>\n

Well, here\u2019s where we disagree somewhat. It is outrageous in a way.<\/p>\n

Outrageously powerful, that is.<\/p>\n

Something about viewing dozens of his paintings in a single room is overpowering, overkill even. Somehow, it doesn\u2019t do McFarlane justice.<\/p>\n

Each painting vies for dominance, and I personally itched to take down all his paintings and put them up one at a time. In different rooms. Where each can take pride of place.<\/p>\n

Private Life, which runs until the Oct 13, is his first ever show in Malaysia, and features mostly small works, which, given the currency exchange to the Aussie dollar, is quite savvy on the part of the gallery.<\/p>\n

The pictures feel very alive, like photographs, except painted. Each model exudes a different sort of tension \u2014 longing, restlessness and even a very sensual menace.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a flux that seems to permeate through in the various McFarlane signatures. The asymmetrical figures, the thick, striking outlines, the 60s film noir glaze \u2014 the exaggeration is in stark contrast to the \u201ccaptured moment\u201d\/photographed compositions \u2014 this despite the fact that he never uses a photo as his reference point but always paints from life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simple way to start painting really especially if your career takes you down the nomadic path. Every location, every scenario gives you a new picture, a new mood, and like a travel photographer, you just shoot.<\/p>\n

Given that he does nothing but paint for a living (and perhaps earns a bit out of teaching as a visiting artist), he\u2019s been going wherever opportunities open up.<\/p>\n

Spending seven years in New York, some time near Milan, and the past four years in Hobart, Tasmania, he\u2019s a rather well-travelled Aussie bloke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve no idea where I\u2019m going next. There\u2019s no way of telling where and when I\u2019ll move. Inevitably, my paintings take on the landscape and the energy of the place,\u201d explained the 53-year-old native of Adelaide.<\/p>\n

Over the last 30 years or so, he\u2019s built up a portfolio that puts him up there amongst the most respected and \u2014 if I may be allowed to gush \u2014 awed figurative painters in Australia. If ever there was a reason to perhaps, put our morality aside and look at the naked female form, this is it.<\/p>\n

Never do any of the figures in Private Life look like porn stars \u2014 even if McFarlane quips that he couldn\u2019t afford any \u2014 but they exhibit a sort of imperfect beauty, an honesty even. It\u2019s a narrative of what people do in private, how they behave when no one\u2019s looking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my work, there\u2019s the element of being human and never really comfortable or satisfied. We always want something else, a finality, a home, finding something. Most of my characters are on that search.\u201d<\/p>\n

This may all come across sounding like postmodern hogwash. But can one help that? Through the centuries, the progress of human civilisation may have been documented in history books, but only in art can we see their likeness, mannerisms and surroundings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how many other artists try to do the same thing. A lot of us try to get high-tech, but for me, I just want to use a primitive medium, to paint what\u2019s current \u2014 computers, iPods, hairdryers \u2014 even though they won\u2019t be using these things in about 50 years from now.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not really McFarlane\u2019s fault if that\u2019s the general consensus of people nowadays, who are admittedly, striving for something not easily gained in an increasingly capitalistic world. You know what they say, money can\u2019t buy you happiness.<\/p>\n

It can however, buy you some of McFarlane\u2019s works, starting from RM6,000 to RM48,00, for the epic work, Upstairs, a larger-than-life portrait that somehow manages to be both simple and sublime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Straits Times, 22 September 2006 See: The naked truth by Shannon Teoh It\u2019s a rare sight in Malaysia but the bold, brazen and bare-breasted await at Wei-Ling Gallery in Brickfields. SHANNON TEOH speaks to Stewart McFarlane, Australia\u2019s premier figurative painter. To begin with, it\u2019s important that you know that there will be nudity. Full [...]","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[17],"class_list":["post-8380","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","hentry","portfolio_entries-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/8380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/8380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8380"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weiling-gallery.com\/contemporary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=8380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}