About the Artist – Outbackart wordpress

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SHANE GEHLERT

Group Exhibitions

(Arid Zone artists group was comprised of Shane Gehlert, Kym Hart, Howard William Steer and Geoff DeMain)

1995 Emerging Visual Art Group exhibition – Pulteney Grammar School, Adelaide

1995 Group exhibition – Royal Flying Doctor Service , Darling Harbour , Sydney

1995 Joint exhibition – Kym Hart , Young , NSW

1996 Group exhibition – ‘Broken Hill artists’ Wagga Wagga, NSW

1996 Group exhibition – Arid Zone Artists, ‘A Country Practice gallery Melbourne

1996 Group exhibition – Arid Zone Artists , Leasingham Winery, Clare , SA

1996 Group exhibition – Arid Zone Artists , Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney

1996 Royal Flying Doctor Exhibition , IBM Building, Darling Harbour , Sydney

1996 King’s School Group exhibition, Sydney

1996 Proud’s Gallery , Sydney

1996 Proud’s Gallery – Philippines group exhibition

1996 Group exhibition – Newcastle

1997 Group exhibition -Arid Zone Artists- Boulder Town Hall, Kalgoorlie, WA

1997 Group exhibition-Arid Zone Artists- Gomboc Gallery , Perth

1997 Bunbury Catholic college show, Bunbury WA

1997 King’s School Group Exhibition, Sydney

1997 Group exhibition – Arid Zone Artists, White patch gallery, Bribie Island, Queensland

1997 Group exhibition- Arid Zone Artists, Berry art gallery, Berry, NSW

1997 Group exhibition- Avoca beach gallery, NSW

1998 Group exhibition- Westfield Parramatta, Sydney, (artist in residence)

1998 Bunbury Catholic college show, Bunbury WA

1998 King’s School Exhibition, Sydney

1998 Group exhibition- Arid Zone Artists, Delshan Gallery, Melbourne

1998 Royal Flying Doctor Exhibition , IBM Building, Darling Harbour , Sydney

1998 Joint exhibition- Shane Gehlert and Howard William Steer, Frances Reilly gallery, , Eumundi, Qld.

1999 Bunbury Catholic college show, Bunbury WA

2000 Arid Zone Artists – The Sydney Art Gallery, Exhibition centre, Sydney

2000 Arid Zone Artists – Delshan Gallery, Melbourne

2000 Group exhibtion – Bandamora gallery/ Darling Harbour

2000 Arid Zone Artists – Exhibition Centre, Melbourne

2001 Arid Zone Artists – Exhibition centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney

2002 Arid Zone Artists – Toowoomba, Qld

2003 Group Exhibition – Manyung Gallery, Melbourne

2003 Arid Zone Artists -Boyd Gallery, Sydney

2003 Arid Zone Artists – Toowoomba, Qld

2004 Group Exhibition – Manyung Gallery, Melbourne

2004 Affordable Art Show – Art Gallery Collections, Melbourne

2004 Affordable Art Show – Art Gallery Collections, Sydney

2005 Affordable Art Show – Art Gallery Collections, Melbourne

2007 Chalk farm Gallery – New Mexico

2007 ‘Mojo Surreal’ – Gallery O, Perth

2009 ‘Utes at the Carrington’ Blue Mountains NSW

2010 ‘Simply Surreal’ Melbourne

Solo Shows

1995 The Country Practice Gallery , Melbourne

1996 The Country Practice Gallery , Melbourne

1999 Delshan Gallery, Melbourne

2001 Delshan Gallery, Melbourne

2003 Delshan Gallery, Melbourne

2004 Art Gallery Collections, Gold Coast, QLD

2006 Manyung Gallery, Melbourne

2010 Gallery Beneath, Sunshine Coast Qld

Corporate Commissions

1995 Broken Hill City Council – Heritage Art Trail

1998 Kendall Airlines – Saab 340 Aircraft mural

1997 Broken Hill city airport mural

2002 Pinnacles mines Pty Ltd, NSW

2004 Personal Customs Services, Sydney NSW

2005 E-Commerce solutions, Southpost Qld

2007 DLD Designers & Planners, Perth, WA

2011 Qld Govt Mt Isa base hospital art project

Recent important aquisitions

Broken Hill City Council

Arid Zone Artists – Whyalla City Council

Southern Imperial Inc. – Chicago

Parramatta city council – Sydney

Kendall Airlines

Media Representations

Television:

Healthy Wealthy and wise – 1995

Good Morning Australia – Bert Newton – Melbourne, 1995

Independent media productions USA – 1997

Meskers Media Productions – Holland – 1997

Outback Adventures Productions – 1998

Printed media:

Dog’s Life Magazine! – 1998

Aussie Post – 1998

RM Williams Outback magazine – 1998

RM Williams Outback magazine – 2000

Country Connection, Kendall Airlines – 1998-99

Landrover Discovery Magazine – 2000

“Expressions” Magazine, Sydney 2000

RM Williams Outback magazine – 2008-2009

Top Gear Australia 2009

Various stories and features in city and regional newspapers

Published Books

Blue Sky Blue Bush and Silver ‘ — Blue Bush Press (publishers), 1993

Art of Broken Hill, Outback Australia – 1999

Selected Contemporary Artists of Australia- 2003

Ok, so what I do is predominantly painting, acrylic on canvas is the preferred medium. In the past I did work in oils and some water color, but tend towards the fast drying acrylic polymers for their ability to work quickly with.

My painting style is well, basically self taught. I just do what I do, it comes naturally and through experimentation and trial and error I have arrived where I am today.I like to layer the paint, starting first with just a white of slightly coloured background. From here, I sketch in the outline of the work. Sometimes straight to canvas and other times after some preliminary drawings. Then I start layering the paint, with the undercolours either working to reinforce the top layers, or to reveal them trough dry brushing successive layers over the top of different colours.

This is a photo of the initial sketch, penciled in first. Many elements that are not at first apparent, go into this process. These include, balance, content, composition and relationship to other shapes and figures.

I usually sketch in the outlines of figures with a brush at this stage. It makes it easier not to outside the lines whilst colouring in!

In goes the sky, mmm pretty blue

Next, I paint in the foreground. this is a specially mixed paint, custom made for me by the monks of a secretive monastery in Italy, using ground pigments from various reptile droppings and mummified cats.

Here is the finished work. “The apparition of St Bilby to the ecumenical council” This painting took about a month, several bottles of wine and three visits to the chiropractor to complete.

The fact still remains that the individual needs to discover for themselves the techniques, style and method of painting that best suites them. The best suggestion I can offer for someone learning to paint is to really “see” what they are observing. Squint your eyes, study the object for several minutes. You begin to realize, hey, that orange fruit is not just orange in colour. Or that shiny silver tea pot, is not silver at all, it’s a myriad of colours and shades, all reflected from it’s environment!

Shane

A little bit about the artist

Shane Gehlert’s current series of works are centered around his themes of “Cybernetic” beings. The most popular being his anthropomorphic beauties rendered in sparkling chrome and lounging seductively against real and imagined backdrops. The paintings are predominantly acrylic on canvas and are almost entirely painted by brush.

When one talks about Australian Art, many names come to mind. The early impressionists for example, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Condor, David Davies, Will Ashton etc. Then we talk of the famous contemporary painters, so synonymous with the wildly exuberant prices currently fetched at auction. Names like, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, John Brack, Sidney Nolan, Margaret Preston, Robert Dickerson, Brett Whitely and so on.

But when you mention Australian surrealists, very few come to mind, Albert Tucker, Peter Purves Smith and the most iconic James Gleeson.

More of a square peg in a round hole, Shane’s unique style of painting and social comment could best fall into the categories of Surrealism, pop surrealism and so called ‘low brow’ art.

It is no surprise that Shane Gehlert’s unique approach to painting comes from a rather unconventional life. An uninhibited self-taught painting style, coupled with an unusual slightly skewed view of the world and a wander lust for travel, learning and information, make for a strange brew of artistic and creative goulash!

Born and raised in the suburbs of Adelaide Southern Australia, Shane soon developed a great affinity for the ‘bush’ and the strange creatures that inhabit the arid lands of the Australian desert. Many a school break was spent visiting the vast outback sheep stations, (Shane’s father was an accountant for a pastoralists firm.) Soon, the vibrant colours and stark light and contrast, were forever etched into his mind’s eye.

Shane began his full time art career in 1992, in the dry, arid regions of central Australia, in, of all places, a mining town. His paintings soon built a solid reputation with galleries and the public. The birth of his iconic ‘Chrome Kangaroos’ forever solidified his reputation as a significant artist, with a highly individual style. The kangaroos soon anthropomorphised into a chrome female form, subjects that are both still carried to this day.

Shane’s paintings are a strange combination of realism, fantasy art, sci-fi, surrealism and political satire.

“I feel it is an artist’s role, to record the images, emotions and climatic undercurrents that we encounter, in this brief moment we are here. Our culture, thoughts, feelings and experiences, are all unique to this snapshot in time. Everything that is truly within us, expressed outwardly, openly, honestly and plausibly, laid bare for the scrutiny of the public, is of immense social importance. Anything else is just ‘wall fluff!’

Shane’s recent series of paintings have evolved into a diverse array of subject matter. With characters, such as ‘Saint Bilby’ the patron Saint of tree huggers, ‘Uncle Sam’, the irascible Tasmanian Devil, clockwork Marsupial mice and hybrid mechanical Bandicoots. These are juxtaposed against real and imagined backdrops, viewed sanguinely by the sensuous chrome beauties or alternately, reflected in Shane’s iconic Metallic Macropods (chrome Kangaroos). These symbolic figures parody the folly of mankind, in its triumphs and failed attempts, to engineer and manipulate the natural Diaspora of this blue planet.

Upon his recent travels through the USA, Shane discovered a great affinity with the desert landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico. The vibrant colors and clear blue skies, reminiscent of his time spent in the ‘outback’ of Australia. This is evident in his new series of paintings, based on those vistas and his interpretation of the diverse cultural aspects of the South West. Time can only tell what new subjects will evolve via the brush, through the tangled imaginative mindscape of this colourful Australian character.

Shane’s work has been exhibited all around Australia in many group and solo exhibitions. This is complimented, by his colourful forays into his so called “experimental shameless media self-promotion field” which includes: a mural on a $17 million SAAB aircraft, painting from a hovering helicopter, and texture and colour metamorphosis, using a shotgun. Not to forget, a tongue in cheek rendition of “Australian Green Poles” which was offered to the Australian National Gallery? This was to baby sit the empty spot left by Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ while it was touring in the U.S.A.

Shane’s unique works are held in private and corporate collections all around the world.

His work has featured in many media publications, books and television shows, both in Australia and internationally.