Patrick Hall, When They Lay Me Down, 2013. Source: TMag.
Debbie Cuthbertson, Patrick Hall retrospective at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery shines home-state spotlight on international success, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 2015
You could be forgiven for not immediately recognising the work of Patrick Hall. The Tasmanian artist is possibly better known to overseas collectors than to many Australians.
Yet a retrospective at the rejuvenated Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMag), one of its first exhibitions dedicated to a local as part of a renewed focus on the state’s artists, has put the unassuming artist firmly in the spotlight in his home state.
The exhibition, called Things I Once Knew: The Art of Patrick Hall, sheds light on more than 30 years of Hall’s artistic practice, which spans furniture making, sculpture and installation, all of which are made by Hall himself in his studio (a relative rarity among artists today)
“It’s nice to be the epicentre,” Hall says of the show. “It’s a bit of a rare privilege, you don’t get to see your work together very often.”
Many of Hall’s works, including wunderkammer-style cabinets filled with bones (collected from roadkill), or outdated technology such as LP records and spools of cassette tape, old family photographs and slides – items that appear to be the discarded effects of generations past – have a dry humour, yet in their many layers reveal a more serious message.
