About Face is an original concept and creation by a group of six Melbourne-based professional artists who have worked together over two years to complete a conceptual portraiture exhibition of 36 large scale works on canvas.

In About Face each artist painted a self portrait plus a portrait of each of the other artists. The exhibition comprises 36 interrelated portraits in which six groups of six single-subject images meld to a gestalt of six different individuals.

Each set of six paintings of one subject by six artists becomes the one artwork

Parallel to the exhibition is an education component that has been used by local schools and art students as part of a touring exhibition in Victorian Regional Galleries and interstate locations.

The Rationale
Portrait exhibitions are not new but this exhibition moves beyond the tradition style of portrait exhibitions in which many different artists hang a single painting of their elected subject (often that of a celebrity or public figure) whose public image is generally the focus of the painting.

In this way the portraits raise interesting questions of what we see in one another and of what we see as ourselves. They challenge the viewer to seek the nature of this relationship between artist and subject, appearance and reality, surface and depth in our interactions with each other and our inner self.

 

The Artists of Fusion Six
Each member of this group is an independent, professional, multi-award winning artist with a background of teaching, demonstrating, judging, and exhibiting. They have extensive experience in solo exhibitions as well as selection in national and overseas exhibitions and competitions including the prestigious

$30000, Shirley Hannan Portrait Prize  and Archibald Exhibitions

The Exhibition
The works are unframed canvas and range in size from one meter square to larger, with all canvases being limited to one side no larger than 152cm (5 ft). An average size would be about 122 x 152/183cm (4 x 5/6ft).

The exhibition offers a unique approach to contemporary realist portraiture and has much to engage the causal viewer, the art lover and the artist. It has a highly viewer friendly feel and will be a very suitable component for discussion and/or study with art students of all levels.

For any information contact

Ivor Edwards
Project Manager, About Face