Explore the exhibition, Jack John and Kempsey, at Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Artwork: Jack Featherstone, Moree, with Catholic Mission, Redfern Series, 1983_Oil on Board, 36×45.5cm.
Painted over 70 years between 1958 and 2020 and showcasing work from the artist’s private collection, and the collections of family, friends, and local collectors – Jack, John and Kempsey is a curated exhibition of paintings by 92-year-old Jack Featherstone opening at Tuggeranong Arts Centre on Saturday 6 February 2021.
Described as a*Magic Realist, Featherstone is a Braidwood based self-taught artist. He has been working daily on his craft since his early 20’s, when he began to diarise his life in paintings. His artwork, which primarily feature people in the landscape, are based on real events but imbued with subtle otherworldliness.
Included in Jack, John and Kempsey, are paintings from Featherstone’s David Series: David’s Nightmare and David’s Prayer c1958; painted during a research trip, to the NT and WA in 1958. The works depict time spent travelling in an old VW through Alice Springs, Docker Creek (river) and Warburton WA and his journey through the outback undertaken as part of dental research trip. His local tracker and the namesake of the series, David, features throughout the series of paintings. Also included are representations of family accounts from WW1, such as The Evacuation of Gallipoli, 2014 and WW2, The Battle for Stallingrad, 2011. In addition to these challenging narratives, many of Jack’s paintings capture moments of joy in the landscape.
Alongside Jack’s work, are two commissioned works by filmmaker Anna Georgia and Jack’s son, and writer Nigel Featherstone. The works reflect on Jack’s life: his achievements, his practice as a dental surgeon, a painter, as a father, a nature enthusiast and a much-loved member of the Braidwood community.
Anna Georgia spent the summer visiting Jack at his home, wherein her camera became both an audience for his story-telling, and a confessional for his deepest reflections. The resulting film provides important personal and historical background for interpreting Jack’s paintings; and contextualises the personal existential significance, for Jack, of gaining institutional recognition as an artist.
“To represent somebody else’s life and sensibility through the camera is a most delicate, absorbing and rewarding challenge. Jack is ninety-two years old with the vividness, enthusiasm and verbosity of a Dickens character. Having lived by himself on the edge of the small town of Braidwood for nearly twenty-five years, Jack engages with other people selectively, preferring to spend most of his time ‘solo but not lonely’ reading books, listening to music, walking in nature, and painting;” Georgia says.
In the introduction to his commissioned piece of writing, The Gift of a Father, Nigel Featherstone writes, “… I have told friends that I know what sort of old man I will be because I have been following my father’s life. ‘In forty years, I’ll be him.’ With that they nod and smile, a little alarmed. Yes, my father and I are similar people, so what exactly am I trying to find? Perhaps I am not trying to find anything; I want to interact with him in a deeper way, to better understand him, to experience the way he lives in the world, to know him – before it is too late.”
Among other enquiries into art, life and connection, Nigel asks… “What makes a man spend so much of his life producing art? What is he hoping to achieve, or understand? Perhaps, for my father, it is nothing more complicated than a desire, or need, to document: ‘I went for a bushwalk and this is what I saw.’ Or he may simply enjoy making things, as do I – I write, he paints.”
Exhibition dates: Saturday 6th February – 27 March 2021.
The Details
What: Jack, John and Kempsey – Exhibition
When: Saturday 6 February 2021 to Saturday 27 March 2021
Where: Tuggeranong Arts Centre
Cost: Free
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