DALE RHODES
Dale has drawn and painted from a young age and has had numerous group and solo shows.
He has been in the Archibald Prize Salon de Refuses and has been a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and a semi-finalist a number of times.
He has also been a finalist in the Lester (Black Swan) Portrait Prize at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and in the Northern Rivers Portrait Prize at the Lismore Regional Gallery.
He was one of the select 50 in the Portrait Society of America’s International Competition.
He has been in the Border Art Prize at the Tweed Regional Gallery twice, and received a judge’s special mention.
Dale has taught drawing and painting privately for many years both privately and at the Bryon Community College and at the Byron School of Art. His courses on the fundamentals of painting and drawing are highly popular and routinely over-subscribed.
He has drawn and painted from a young age and has studied at a number of institutions.
Dale is represented in private collections in Australia and overseas, and in the permanent collection of the Tweed Regional Gallery.
Dale lives and works near Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales, Australia.
Abbreviated catalogue essay by Anna Johnson
The work of Dale Rhodes shares the meticulous grace of earlier classical traditions. The faces he paints are built on finely drawn bone, sinew and flesh. The skin of his oranges have heft and patina. His trees rustle.
After decades of application it seems that he can paint and draw anything. His pictures eclipse their own powers of description, inviting the eye to search for shared qualities across forms.
His portraits are almost visceral in their quiet magnetism. His depictions of crumpled paper and fruit compel the eye into fathomless depth. His landscapes enclose astonishing detail and emotional charge within apparently minimal compositions.
This painter does not rush and he does not abbreviate. The pleasure he takes in the evolution of a painting is palpable in every stage.
“The more time embroidered into the paint the better. When I put a piece of paint down I’m totally committed to that stroke but I might well come back and change it completely.”
Surely the point of formal skill is not a goal but a gate that must be kicked open. What is felt is the source of what is real.
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