What do you associate with the term still life? Is it highly detailed, and realistic painted images of flower bouquets and tables laden with lavish bowls of fruit and game from a time past? Yes, the still life genre uses inanimate objects such as flowers, fruit and vegetables, and manufactured items to symbolically reflect on nature, wealth, exploration and mortality, however at present, the still life is a space for creative experimentation exploring issues of consumerism, beauty, power, postcolonialism and gender politics.
Artists have pushed the boundaries of the genre from painting and sculpture into the realms of photography, performance and new media. These works currently on display in ‘Still Life Now‘ at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane until 19 February, use strategies of repetition, appropriation and transformation to reflect or reject the concerns of traditional still lifes — such as the memento mori (a stoic visual reminder of the inevitability of death) and the vanitas still life (the use of elaborate spreads to highlight life’s transience) — to reconsider the genre in the current era of image production.
Michael Cook ‘Nature Morte (Blackbird)’
Nature Morte (Blackbird), from Michael Cook’s ‘Natures Mortes’ series, draws on visual strategies affiliated with the still‑life genre — particularly the memento mori, a visual reminder of the inevitability of death — to highlight the devastating impact of colonisation from an Indigenous point of view. Here, the black cockatoos symbolise the inhuman practices that were present in the Australian sugar industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The work’s title refers to ‘blackbirding’, a type of entrapment used to capture and transport South Sea Islander people to Australia as indentured labour to service the burgeoning cane fields and sugar industries. The wilted flowers mourn the cruelty of this practice, with the set of scales resembling a cross-like figure that marks the countless deaths of First Nations peoples.
Justine Cooper ‘Blue triangle butterflies’
Moving between the beautiful and the macabre, Justine Cooper’s ‘Saved by science’ series explores the human fascination with collection and preservation. Offering a glimpse into the 32 million specimens held in the cabinets and vaults of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Cooper draws particular attention to the multiple, demonstrating how the collected animals are assigned value en masse during the process of scientific interrogation. Unlike still lifes that draw attention to the cycle of life and the certainty of death, Cooper’s photographs demonstrate the ability of science to defy death through the superficial suspension of life.
Marian Drew ‘Possum with five birds’
The photograph Possum with five birds echoes the tone of paintings made in the still‑life tradition to explore contemporary relations to native animals killed through the expansion of urbanisation in Australia. The animals featured — destroyed either by introduced predators, land-clearing, urban development or as roadkill — are then collected by Drew and placed alongside embroidered fabrics, fine china, candles, fruits and vegetables. By positioning the animals amongst these domestic objects, the space between the human world and the animal world is reduced; emphasising the ethical responsibility that humans have to the animals that share our environments. In this still life arrangement, they remind us of the cost of urbanisation to wild animals and of humans’ ever-changing relationship with nature.
Damien Hirst ‘For the love of God, laugh’
Renowned for creating artworks that explore the dilemmas of human existence, Damien Hirst’s For the love of God, laugh rebels against mortality by transforming the human skull into a glittering object of desire. Coated with diamond dust, the print depicts Hirst’s sculptural work For the Love of God 2007, a platinum cast of an eighteenth‑century skull encrusted with 8601 diamonds. A familiar motif in memento mori still lifes, the skull is a haunting symbol of contemplation and foreboding. Our attention is drawn to its smile – the real human teeth the only part of the work not covered by diamonds – bringing a sardonic humour and sense of contempt that suggests victory over decay.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye ‘Yam dreaming’
In the ‘Yam dreaming’ series of paintings, Emily Kame Kngwarreye uses vibrant colours to trace the meandering root systems of Arlatyeye (pencil yam or bush potato) as they forge their way through the Simpson Desert. Kngwarreye’s paintings emphasise the significance of Arlateye as an essential provider of food and sustenance, as well as the subject of significant ceremonies amongst Eastern Anmatyerre people. Rather than simply observing or recording the material properties of Arlatyeye, Kngwarreye integrates her own ancestral knowledge into these paintings to create vivid compositions.
Deborah Kelly ‘Beastliness’
Deborah Kelly’s vibrant collage animation Beastliness presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the future. Featuring a cast of hybrid creatures created from the pages of obsolete encyclopaedias, textbooks and natural history magazines, Kelly uses the scaffolds of old scientific knowledge to create an alternative reality free from the constraints of heteronormativity. The work, which invokes a wild sense of sexual liberation and hedonism, also features symbolic representations of fertility and reproduction (such as nests of spinning eggs) that celebrate the corporeal magic of birth and rebirth.
Robert MacPherson ‘MAYFAIR: 4,4,JOE BIRCH’
In his paintings, Robert MacPherson often uses appropriated language and images encountered in daily life to reflect upon what constitutes a work of art. Featuring imagery and lettering taken from hand-painted road signage found on regional highways throughout Australia, MacPherson’s ‘Mayfair’ series of works uses the still life as a platform to elevate mundane road signs from a position of low to high art. Referencing pop art and the readymade, “MAYFAIR: 4,4JOE BIRCH” 1999 reveals MacPherson’s approach to the depiction of multiples — sequences of similar or identical objects – that highlight the connection of the still life to money, manufacture and trade.
Kimiyo Mishima ‘Work 21 – C4 2021’
Kimiyo Mishima skilfully recreates throwaway objects — such as newspapers, drink cans and cardboard boxes — as highly realistic hand-painted ceramics. Work...
Moving us into heightened states of observation and bringing attention to everyday narratives, as well as wider historical implications, the works in the exhibition ‘Still Life Now’ and accompanying ‘Still Lives’ film program consider how contemporary artists and filmmakers draw on the ideas of the still-life tradition to explore issues of consumerism, beauty, power, postcolonialism and gender politics.
When we think of a picture created in the still‑life tradition, the image that comes to mind might include freshly cut flowers, fruit and vegetables or manufactured objects, frozen in time. Captured in near-perfect detail, these artfully arranged inanimate objects appear to be examples of domesticity; in fact, they are often coded with symbolic references, the artists having used sumptuous imagery to reflect on nature, wealth, exploration and, importantly, mortality. Artists today continue to share, and reject, the concerns of traditional types of still life, such as the memento mori (the stoic visual reminder of the inevitability of death) and the vanitas still life (the use of elaborate spreads to highlight life’s transience) by using strategies of repetition, appropriation and transformation across media, from painting, printmaking and sculpture to performance and time-based works.
Contemporary artist Jude Rae disrupts the illusion of realism with SL447 2021 (illustrated) by adding small visual clues in the form of dripping paint marks and brightly coloured haloes. Conversely, Cressida Campbell’s carved woodblock painting The lithographic studio (Griffith University) 1986 (illustrated) transforms a busy print studio — an environment specifically created for the production and manufacture of images — into an image itself.
Jude Rae ‘SL447’
Cressida Campbell ‘The lithographic studio (Griffith University)’
Reproduction and representation haunt the still life, almost as much as does its relationship to time. The genre’s popularisation in seventeenth-century Europe transformed image-making into a commodity, imbuing these pictures with heightened material value. Known for his audacious embrace of the art market, artist Damien Hirst plays on the currency of images to emphasise the futility of wealth: the print For the love of God, laugh 2007 (illustrated), of a real skull covered in over 8000 diamonds, and which is itself embellished with diamond dust, transforms this classic motif of death into a glittering object of desire.
Damien Hirst ‘For the love of God, laugh’
DELVE DEEPER: Damien Hirst’s ‘For the love of God, laugh’
Artists such as Michael Cook’s ‘Natures Mortes’ series (illustrated) and Salote Tawale, who reclaim historical imagery to consciously reflect on contemporary states of being, create new commentary through works that take the troubled colonial past of the still life and its relationship to trade as their subject. The featured works by Emily Kame Kngwarreye ( Yam dreaming 1995 illustrated) combine ancestral knowledge with rich painterly forms to explore intangible connections to food and Country. The strength of contemporary voices is similarly shown in the collaborative piece Carving Country 2019–21 by Brian Robinson and Tamika Grant-Iramu, who use the process of carving as a way of celebrating life and First Nations cultures through visual storytelling.
Michael Cook ‘Nature Morte (Agriculture)’
Emily Kame Kngwarreye ‘Yam dreaming’
DELVE DEEPER: Michael Cook’s ‘Natures Mortes’ series
The moving image can also use stillness to bring attention to the passing of time and the fragility of life. Accompanying the ‘Still Life Now’ exhibition is the ‘Still Lives’ cinema program, the selected films in which reflect many of the concerns of the genre on screen. ‘Slow cinema’ is style of filmmaking that uses long shots to create broad narratives that offer space for visual contemplation. Oxhide 2005, directed by Liu Jiayin, and Abbas Kiarostami’s final feature, 24 Frames 2017 (illustrated), each use structured static frames, reminiscent of still‑life imagery, to move us into a heightened state of observation and bring attention to the everyday narratives that unfurl through the experience of living. The darkly comedic films A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence 2014 (illustrated) (director Roy Andersson) and Meanwhile on Earth 2020 (director Carl Olsson) feature suites of vignettes, presenting experiences of death that confront its macabre associations. The still-life tradition of displaying extravagant, excessive spreads of luscious foods is explored in Peter Strickland’s latest feature film, Flux Gourmet 2022 (illustrated), and in Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover 1989, both of which deploy visually lavish, gluttonous depictions of food, ultimately creating a sense of revulsion and disgust.
RELATED: ‘Still Lives’ film program
In the present, the still life is a space for creative experimentation. Consumerism, beauty, postcolonialism and gender politics are addressed through the contemporary still life, in both the gallery space and on screen, proving that life is anything but still.
Victoria Wareham is Assistant Curator, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA
’24 Frames’ Dir: Abbas Kiarostami
‘Flux Gourmet’ Dir: Peter Strickland
‘Still Life Now’ is in Gallery 2.1, GOMA, until 19 February 2023. The ‘Still Lives’ film program is screening at the Australian Cinémathèque, GOMA, until 12 March 2023.
Featured image: Production still from A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence 2014 / Dir: Roy Andersson / Image courtesy: Madman Entertainment
