Jordan Marani
Colourful Language: The Charm Offensive
15 November - 20 December 2014
“When Sir Winton Turnbull… was raving and ranting on the adjournment and shouted: “I am a Country member”. I interjected “I remember”. He could not understand why, for the first time in all the years he had been speaking in the House, there was instant and loud applause from both sides.” – Gough Whitlam
”Just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were about 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of shit over the rest of us.” – Paul Keating (to Jim McClelland)
“You’re such a cunt*.” – Christopher Pyne (to Bill Shorten, in Parliament)
Jordan Marani makes darkly humourous work involving personal narratives, wry observations of the human condition and an exploration of loss and the past. Through painting and sculpture employing bright colour, humour and word play, he explores the funny side of the dark side.
The paintings of Colourful Language: The Charm Offensive continue an exploration of profanity that the artist began in 1990 with his first FUCK. The text works blend lowbrow culture with high art, and are drawn from the ugly vernacular of Australian politics and the pub. These text works sit alongside a series of garish cartoon ‘talking heads’, which act as the protagonists in the cacophonous display.
From 2008-2011 Jordan was co-founder and director of Hell Gallery. His work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, the National Gallery of Victoria, Static Gallery Liverpool, Switchback Gallery, 200 Gertrude Street, Daine Singer, Neon Parc, Utopian Slumps, Ryan Renshaw, Ray Hughes Gallery, Powell Street Gallery and at ARIs including Death Be Kind, Inflight, Seventh, and West Space.
* Pyne maintains this was “grub”.
