DALE RHODES

Abbreviated catalogue essay by Anna Johnson 

The work of Dale Rhodes shares the meticulous grace of earlier classical traditions. The faces he paints are built on finely drawn bone, sinew and flesh. The skin of his oranges have heft and patina. His trees rustle.

After decades of application it seems that he can paint and draw anything. His pictures eclipse their own powers of description, inviting the eye to search for shared qualities across forms.

“My work is not about depicting reality, it’s about using the subject to create an alternative reality in paint.”

His portraits are almost visceral in their quiet magnetism. His depictions of crumpled paper and fruit compel the eye into fathomless depth. His landscapes enclose astonishing detail and emotional charge within apparently minimal compositions.

This painter does not rush and he does not abbreviate. The pleasure he takes in the evolution of a painting is palpable in every stage.

“The more time embroidered into the paint the better. When I put a piece of paint down I’m totally committed to that stroke but I might well come back and change it completely.”

Surely the point of formal skill is not a goal but a gate that must be kicked open. What is felt is the source of what is real.

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Dale is represented in private collections in Australia and overseas, and in the permanent collection of the Tweed Regional Gallery.

In 2018 he was one of the Portrait Society of America's select fifty out of 2,733 international portrait entries. He was hung in the 2017 Archibald Prize Salon de Refuses. He was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 2016, and a semi-finalist in 2017. He has had four other Moran semi-finalists.

In 2016 Dale was a finalist in the Black Swan Portrait Prize at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. He was hung in the Border Art Prize at the Tweed Regional Gallery in  2016 and 2014, when he received a judge’s special mention, and was a finalist in the Northern Rivers Portrait Prize at the Lismore Regional Gallery in 2013.

Dale has been in a number of group shows and held numerous solo exhibitions.

Dale teaches drawing and painting privately and at the Byron School of Art. His courses on the fundamentals of painting and drawing are highly popular and routinely over-subscribed. Dale has been teaching for many years.

He has drawn and painted from a young age and has studied at a number of institutions.

Dale lives and works near Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales, Australia.