Imitation realism and Australian art

The work of the Imitation Realists has rightly been seen as marking the start of the widespread use of assemblage and popular culture by Australian artists during the 1960s. Viewed within the context of their training and the debates of the Australian art world in the 1950s, it can be seen that the impetus for their work was to find an alternative form of 'Australian' art. The stated objective of this thesis is to demonstrate how the work of the Imitation Realists adapted and contributed to changes to art in Australia. This is achieved by considering the work of Mike Brown, Ross Crothall and Colin Lanceley in the context of the debates that shaped the reception and production of art in Australia, including changing ideas concerning materials, exhibition display and the national identity. Their art, exhibitions and statements are closely analysed to show how the group formed, worked together and why they later disbanded. It is argued in this thesis that Imitation Realism arose as a response to what the artists saw as the inadequacy of local art practice. This was a result of a disconnection that they saw between contemporary art and daily life in Australia. The Imitation Realists found that both abstract and figurative painters were at a remove from modern urban life as they experienced it. They tried to form an authentic mode of art that connected with the materiality of the everyday. Assemblage enabled the artists to break through the impasse they perceived in contemporary art. Their work was one instance of a widespread interest in the 'primitive' and assemblage shared by artists in Europe and the United States. As virtually no precedent existed for their art in Australia, it is contextualised internationally in this thesis. This identifies that the Imitation Realists shared the practice of using deliberately naive techniques and styles to create work that sought to capture creativity at its most basic level. The Imitation Realists used assemblage to respond to modern life as a whole, not just to modernism within the visual arts.

Author dc:creator

• Gunn, Anthea Caroline

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

b2444595

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au:1885/109407