Deutscher and Hackett

‘There is a way, answered the tree; but it is so terrible that l dare not tell it to you.’ ‘Tell it to me’, said the Nightingale, ‘l am not afraid.’

Awarded the prestigious Archibald Prize in 2008 for You are what is most beautiful about me, a tender self-portrait with her two children Kell and Arella, and again in 2013 for her pensive portrayal of actor Hugo Weaving, Del Kathryn Barton is undoubtedly one of the most critically acclaimed, eagerly sought-after figures in Australian contemporary art. Attesting to the extraordinary success of her enchanting signature style are the numerous collaborations across the arts in which she has been invited to participate – including most significantly, the commission by publishing house Art and Australia in 2010 to create a series of works reimagining Oscar Wilde’s poignant fairytale, The Nightingale and the Rose (1888).

Given her predilection for themes of fantasy and metamorphosis, together with her enduring commitment to the power of the narrative, it is perhaps unsurprising that Barton had long been an avid enthusiast of Oscar Wilde’s prose. As an artist, moreover, Barton acknowledges that she has always felt a particular affinity for the vulnerable yet courageous character of the nightingale who selflessly undertakes to find the student a rare red rose for his lover, and in the greatest gesture of sacrificial love, gives her life entirely to its creation. Fatally piercing her breast against the thorns of the rose bush, she dramatically surrenders her lifeblood to stain the white rose petals crimson – all the while continuing to passionately recite her sweet song in the moonlight. At once naïve and wise, young and old, bold and sentimental, Wilde’s timeless heroine thus embodies for Barton a ‘true artist who gives completely of her deepest essence.’1 As she elucidates, ‘… l’m always surprised actually, that people look at her story of self-sacrifice with a quality of religiosity. Because, for me, I feel that she lives the most fulfilled life – for better or for worse, or from an informed place or not, but from her heart she makes a choice she believes in … She gives everything from that place and for me that’s a paradigm to live by. There is an element of tragedy, but I connect to the story as one of transcendence and ecstasy through commitment to one’s beliefs.’2

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INSTALLATION VIEW, ‘DEL KATHRYN BARTON:
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE’, HEIDE
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, MELBOURNE, 2012

PHOTOGRAPH: JOHN BRASH

With its captivating beauty, deep sonorous palette and obsessively patterned background (which perfectly evokes the late nineteenth century Aesthetic Movement encapsulated by Wilde), from her nest in the holm-oak tree the nightingale heard him, 2011 offers an impressive example of Barton’s exquisite ‘Nightingale’ suite. Pervaded by a wild and lovely melancholy, the composition is at once emotionally direct and clearly also sumptuously staged, illustrating the dramatic moment when the nightingale overhears a young student express his fears about losing the young woman he loves forever – the Professor’s daughter who has threatened to abandon him unless he presents her with a red rose. Thus, the small bird proceeds to ponder deeply the mystery of love, reminding us that ‘Life is very dear to all’, yet ultimately concluding that ‘love is better than life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?’ If tragically such pure and exemplary love is met with petulant selfishness in Wilde’s tale, for Barton the true subject – as elsewhere in her oeuvre – is the possibility of communication between animals and humans. As Julie Ewington astutely notes, ‘… here it seems that the little nightingale better understood the hearts of the humans, or at least one human, than they did themselves.’3

Comprising eight major paintings and four smaller watercolours, Barton’s hauntingly beautiful ‘Nightingale’ suite today remains universally admired among her finest achievements. Indeed, such was the success of the lavish hardcover publication by Art and Australia that in 2012, Barton joined forces with acclaimed Australian film-maker Brendan Fletcher to translate her Nightingale paintings into film – an intense and stunningly ethereal interpretation of Wilde’s earnest tale for which the duo subsequently won an Australian Directors Guild Award for Best Direction in an Animation in 2016.

1. Barton cited in Ewington, J., Del Kathryn Barton, Piper Press, 2014, p. 73
2. Barton cited in Stephens, A., ‘Del Kathryn Barton’s The Nightingale and the Rose Comes to ACMI’, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, 14 June 2016
3. Ewington, op. cit.

VERONICA ANGELATOS

                                                                     

Del Kathryn Barton lives and works in Sydney

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2017 Del Kathryn Barton: The Highway is a Disco, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2016 Del Kathryn Barton: The Nightingale and The Rose, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, and touring to various public and regional galleries throughout Australia, 2017 – 2020
2014 Express Yourself: Romance Was Born for Kids, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2014 Dark Heart, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
2013 The Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2013 Australia: Contemporary Voices, Fine Arts Society, London
2012 Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria
2012 The Nightingale and The Rose, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and touring to Newcastle Art Gallery,
New South Wales, 2012 – 2013
2012 Lightness and Gravity, Queensland Gallery of Art / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
2011 The Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2010 Feminism Never Happened, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
2009 The Wynne Prize for Landscape, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2007 Del Kathryn Barton, Penrith Regional Gallery, New South Wales

SELECTED LITERATURE
Del Kaythryn Barton: The Highway is a Disco, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2017
Ewington, J., Del Kathryn Barton, Piper Press, Sydney, 2014
Wilde, O., & Barton, D., The Nightingale and the Rose, Dott Publishing, Art and Australia Pty Ltd, Sydney, 2012

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Artbank, Sydney
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland
University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney
University of Sydney, New South Wales

REPRESENTED BY
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Albertz Brenda, New York, USA