Cirrus@Austlit

Title: Untitled 1998

Alternative title: [foreign language/other

Date of production: 1998

Series:

Series date:

Oil on linen

Technique: [production process: lithograph, encaustic, bas relief]

Edition:

Catalogue raisonne:

Dimensions: 78.0 x 100.0 cm

Inscriptions:

Provenance:

Credit line: Collection of The University of Queensland Art Museum. Gift of Debbie and Todd Jeffries through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.2009

Accession no: 2009.75

Copyright line: Courtesy of the Artist

A master of the creation of the atmospheric, Wallace deploys a realistic mode of expression in her practice to capture moments of poignant ambiguity. Situations laced with expectancy and suspense never resolve their endings, instead leaving the viewer without closure in a discomforted state. Variously linked with cinematic influences , the theories of French philosopher Lacan , and feminist discourse , Wallace successfully freezes the gaze, suspending the viewer in a limbo of disquiet contemplation.

Untitled, executed mid –career by Wallace in 1998 uses a diptych technique often seen in her oeuvre to slice the picture plane in two, one half in light, the other deep in shadow. Here the contrast is between one part of a suburban house, closed and shut for the night, the other brightly lit by an interior light. The sky is jet black, dawn or dusk is far away. Our eye is drawn by the use of strong horizontal line away from night to the shadowy figure lurking behind the interior shutters of the lit room. We are invited to seek the hidden narrative by the contrast of light and dark. What lurks within this ordinary realm of domesticity in an ordinary suburban weatherboard house? Is there fear? Is that fear within the house or outside?

The 1990’s were awash with the postmodern theories based on the tenets of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, where the self is constituted through being viewed by others from the outside. According to Lacan, our eye is lured into a 'blind spot' oblivious of its subjectivity. This is the 'gaze' produced through perspective. In Untitled, we stand outside as the voyeur in contrast to what possibilities lurk within. These myriad perspectives include applying feminist critical theory which seeks to illuminate enduring inequities through aesthetic means. Here, Wallace could be illuminating or “shining the light” on the shadow of the dark domestic experience for some women. The shadow appears large, menacing and dark, in contrast to the blue of the central panel of weatherboard. Perhaps the sky blue juxtaposed against the dark represents the hope for a better morning, a new day? In this instance we can see Wallace at work placing us in the picture to form a narrative of our own weaving, without offering any resolution. It is not that there is no history or consequence, Wallace's best works tell us, but that we cannot ever truly know these - despite being obliged to accept responsibility for them. Untitled is a lesser known work than those figurative works held by other major galleries, however it represents the pivotal transition seen in Wallace’s oeuvre from the purely figurative early works to those later works which include detailed architectural references.

See Colless, E. Double Jeopardy, catalogue essay, Anne Wallace – Recent Paintings, 1999

Hall, K. Moments Away, in absentia exhibition catalogue, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National

University, Canberra, 1998

Butler, R. Anne Wallace’s Confessions, Art and Australia, volume 32, number 3 1995

George Petelin, review, Private Rooms: 10 years of Painting by Anne Wallace, Artlink, Vol 20no 4, 2000