Dale Frank Exhibition

Olsen Gruin

[Image: Dale Frank "She often shared tequila and pineapple with an important Hollywood actor but it never amounted to anything" (2017) Hand painted Mexican death masks, silk flowers on Epoxyglass on Perspex 78 x 71 x 4 in.]

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Olsen Gruin presents Dale Frank, the eponymous solo exhibition comprising 15 abstract mixed media paintings by the lauded Australian artist. The large, colorful and self-reflective wall pieces, mostly composed of Epoxyglass on Perspex with additional nontraditional materials, possess droll biographical titles that range from pornographic to melancholy. The personification of each piece created through its unique, unfinished narrative conjures empathy, humor and wonder in addition to its abstract visual beauty and polished technical execution. Dale Frank will be on view at Olsen Gruin.

Dale Frank is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary painters. Frank has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for over three decades. Frank’s work has been included in major exhibitions, such as; Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990’s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2017); Shut Up And Paint, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2016); Dancing Umbrellas, curated by Sue Crammer, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2016); Luminous World, National Art School, Sydney (2016); and Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015).

Frank was included in Dark Heart, curated by Nick Mitzevich, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2014. In 2013, his work was featured in Personal Structures at the Palazzo Bembo as part of the official program of the 55th Venice Biennale. He has been included in three Biennales of Sydney (1982, 1990 and 2010) and he was selected for the major survey exhibition, Contemporary Australia: Optimism at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008). A major solo retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000. In 1983, Frank was included in the exhibition Panorama della post - critica: critica ed arte at the Museo Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa along with Thomas Lawson and Anselm Kiefer. In 1984, Frank was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale and Junger Europaischer Maler (Young European Painters) section in the exhibition, Europe-Amerika: 1940 to the Present, at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.

Frank’s paintings are held in every major public collection in Australia as well as museums worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Kunsthaus, Zurich. A major monograph on Dale Frank’s work, ‘So Far: the Art of Dale Frank 2005-1980’ was published in 2007.