Manifestation: Anthony White

Marking a new direction for the artist, Manifestation consists of a series of paintings responding to Sidney Nolan’s 1966 Eureka Stockade mural in which White reclaims the painterly gesture as a form of dissent. This is White's third solo show with the gallery, his first in the new space as Lennox St. Gallery and his first body of work made as a response to a single work of art.

White draws on new research into the 1854 Eureka Rebellion (Australia’s only ever armed civil uprising), the personal papers of Sidney Nolan and recent protest events in France, highlighting the increasing importance of his engagement with material, concept and history. Painted in France during a period marked by widespread public protests, these ten new works continue White’s wider thinking around the painterly gesture as a form of dissent, as well as the act of civil disobedience, or, in French, Manifestation – a protest, public event, action, or object which embodies an idea.

Following White’s recent creative fellowship at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, Manifestation responds to the anti-colonial spirit in Sidney Nolan’s Eureka Stockade mural, which White spent time with in Canberra at ANU’s Drill Hall Gallery. Commissioned by the Reserve Bank ofAustralia, the mural depicts the pivotal event of the Victorian gold rush – a crucial point in Australia’s democratic history. White’s research into the papers of Sidney Nolan at the National Library, uncovered correspondence which reveals Nolan’s response to the only first hand account of the Eureka rebellion written by the Italian revolutionary Rafaello Carboni. Manifestation considers Nolan’s engagement with that European vision of the event, the legacy of Eureka and the development of a particular Australian psyche typified by a defence of democratic values.

Each work incorporates an event or individual element from the Eureka battle as depicted in the Nolan mural: Hotham incorporates imagery resembling mounted policemen; Eureka Hotel and the largest work 'Manifest (After Eureka)' (125 x 235 cm) depicts the epic destruction of Bentley’s Eureka Hotel caused by a fire started by rioting miners on the 12th of October 1854. In each work White finds equivalent ways of harnessing the energy and dissenting spirit of the battle.

“I went to the Nolan archive to capture this anti-colonial spirit inherent in some of the images of the mural to emphasise the sense of dissent but what struck me was the ethnic diversity of the period in Victoria. What I found was Chinese, Italian, African Americans, Jewish and Irish migrants revolting against the colonial government. It manifested as the Eureka Rebellion which became a crucial part of Australia’s engagement with democracy. In the current moment we are seeing the increasing relevance of civil disobedience in movements such as The Yellow Vests in France and groups like Extinction Rebellion protesting for climate change, increasing class inequalities or retirement ages. In my mind there is no doubt that the power of democracy is diminishing internationally and I feel we need to voice our discontent with government policies that infringe on personal liberty, especially the right to protest peacefully.” – Anthony White