David Noonan (born Ballarat, lives and works in London) is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally active artists with a practice that incorporates painting, screenprinting, sculpture, installation and film. With a practice that spans over two decades, Noonan has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally in leading museums and biennale exhibitions. David was a Gertrude Studio artist from 1999 - 2000, during which time he presented The Likening (with Simon Trevacs) in Studio 12, later presented in Screen Life, organised by Gertrude Contemporary at the Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid and the Govett–Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth in 2002. His first solo exhibition, Type 1-36, was presented at Gertrude Contemporary in 1993.
In advance of the opening of his exhibition A Dark and Quiet Place, Mark Feary, Artistic Director of Gertrude Contemporary spoke with David about his upcoming exhibition and reflecting on his time at Gertrude.
Mark Feary: A Dark and Quiet Place is your first filmic work since your 8mm films of 2005, why the return to the medium now?
David Noonan: I had been contemplating making a moving image piece for quite a while but in 2015 I started to reflect on being in London for over a decade and thinking about my practice more broadly. It was quite an introspective year as I had just done a large show of wall works for Xavier Hufkens gallery in Brussels and I felt like I wanted to stop making ‘things’ for a while and look back over what I had gathered over this 10-year period. Looking at this material it felt like the best way to work with it would be to make something durational. I wanted to make something that in some way examined the themes that had run through my work over that time, not exactly to summarize them, but to underline them, in order to move on.
MF: Having worked almost exclusively in painting and collaged screen-printing (predominantly as 2D works, but also in sculptural forms) over the past decade or more, how have these mediums affected and informed your current shift to film?
DN: The film is made up entirely of still images most of which have come out of the archive that I have been putting together over the last ten or so years and has been the foundation of all of my 2D and sculptural work. None of the images in the film have ever been used in my 2D works or sculptures, but rather a lot of them were material that I had collected but had not used. I subsequently looked for specific images once the film started to take shape but the majority of it came out of existing material.
MF: A Dark and Quiet and Place recently premiered in London, selected to inaugurate Modern Art’s new gallery space, and this will be the first time to be shown in Australia. What can audiences familiar with your practice expect to experience?
DN: It is almost like looking at one of my wall works, but one which constantly changes. It is essentially a montage of figurative and abstract images. None of the material has been filmed as such, so it really is using the same language and in some ways processes that I have used in my other work. The pace and the sound are intended to take the viewer into an almost meditative state. It is very much about looking and experiencing images in a particular atmosphere which people will be familiar with if they know my work at all.
MF: It could be noted that all of the films and video works you have made - your early works in collaboration with Simon Trevaks in the late 1990s to this current work, have all been titled, while for the most part your paintings and printed works are all untitled. Is there a conscious reason for this? Is it related to cinematic conventions, to narrative, production time?
DN: I often avoid titles in my non-film work as I find that language can influence the viewer's interpretation and be too prescriptive. Somehow the films feel more like albums that require titles and the pictures are like songs that can remain untitled.
MF: This is your first solo exhibition in Melbourne since your Scenes exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in 2009. Although you worked for a period in New York and have been based in London since the early 2000s, Melbourne audiences still hold a strong allegiance to you as an artist who has forged a very respectable international career. Are there specific challenges or affections for you as an artist in exhibiting in a city that you for a long period called home?
DN: I was really happy to be invited to do this exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary because although I have not lived in Melbourne for a long time I have such a strong connection to the city and Australia in general. Australia will always be my home. 200 Gertrude Street hosted my very first solo show after I graduated VCA post-grad in 1993, so it’s an important gallery for me. The timing and opportunities have not aligned since my ACCA show, which is why I’ve only shown in Sydney with Roslyn Oxley9 gallery. But my affection for Melbourne is certainly strong, and as far as challenges go, I hope I can present the work in the best way that I can. A Dark and Quiet Place is significant for me as it has marked a shift in my practice and took a long time to make, so I am pleased to be sharing it with a Melbourne audience.
MF: As a Gertrude Studio Artist 1999-2000, you will be the first Alumni to present work in the new Gertrude gallery since relocating last year. What are your reflections on your time and artistic peers while in the studios?
DN: It was a really exciting time to be in Melbourne. Max Delaney was the new director of Gertrude and he bought an amazing optimism and energy to the place. The gallery felt like an extension of the Melbourne artist run spaces scene which was super active at the time, (First Floor, Bus Projects, etc). I think Store 5 had just finished. The Melbourne Biennial 1999 had just happened, there was a palpable energy in the art world in the city at that time. Studio artists included people like Ricky Swallow and Renee So (who became my wife). I remember I spent so much time in Studio 1, and we all spent a lot of time at Yelza, the bar across the street too, it was a really socially engaged time as we were all pretty young. It was the best studio that I had ever had so I felt very lucky to be there amongst those peers and at that moment in Melbourne.
MF: Could you describe the conditions of your current studio in London, its atmosphere and how you spend time in it? Has it shifted or changed in the production of your latest work?
DN: It has taken a long time to finally have a studio that I am very happy in and suits all of my work needs. It is a large new-build, double-height ceiling space with another separate mezzanine space. It was a shell when I got it so I was able to work with an architect to design it to suit my working needs very closely, so it works perfectly for me. The atmosphere is quiet, which I am lucky to have in very urban Hackney East London. The aesthetic is quite minimal, lots of white walls and concrete, very different to my previous space in a crumbling Victorian shopfront. Moving here enabled me to fully house my archive and in doing so encouraged me to organise it and therefore look through everything which in turn inspired making the film. So, the space has in many ways facilitated the making of A Dark and Quiet Place.
