SALA Featured Artist - Antony HAMILTON
Raddle, 1984
Antony Hamilton grew up on a sheep property in north-eastern Victoria and frequently his art making draws on the tools and materials of his upbringing. Far from nostalgic, these references to the past, to exploration and farming, problematise our relationship to the land. Art historian and former Gallery director Daniel Thomas claimed in 1995 that Hamilton’s was ‘surely the most thoroughly Australian art hitherto made by a non-Aboriginal Australian’.
Raddle is a succinct and surreal evocation of place. Woolpack hooks animate a farm blanket impregnated with the red iron ore used in dyeing and sheep marking. Hamilton describes these works as ‘situations’ rather than art objects, and his use of this term recalls the practice of such artists as Joseph Beuys and Nikolaus Lang, who through their use of found objects, unconventional materials and process-based approach have been influential to Hamilton.
Today Hamilton lives west of the Flinders Ranges in the mid-north of South Australia, close to the distinctive landscape conjured in all its stark beauty by Hans Heysen in his nearby paintings.
Another work of art
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detail: Antony Hamilton
Australia, born 1955
Raddle
1984, Adelaide
jute woolpack, dry raddle (red ochre), horse grease,
steel pack hooks, jute binding
Father Owen Farrell Bequest Fund 1987
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
© Art Gallery of South Australia
Antony Hamilton
Australia, born 1955
Black opal
1996, Adelaide
leather back pack, feral cat pelts, plastic key ring,
oil cloth anorak
100.0 x 55.0 x 30.0 cm
Faulding 150 Anniversary Fund for South Australian
Contemporary Art 1999
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
