The Orphans
Simone Kennedy
A small boy, filled with silent piety and devotedly at prayer, forms the central subject of The Orphans. Drawn from a picture produced by the English illustrator, Margaret Tarrant, Kennedy’s attachment to Tarrant’s work lies not with its religious underpinnings but with the way in which the image was first presented to her: as a mother’s single gift given to her as a child.
The artist’s concern with familial relationships has been a persistent theme throughout her painting and the small boy at prayer, devoid of human company, is a leitmotif signifying both absence and estrangement. Yet, this small boy and the way in which he first came to Kennedy, have begun in the artist a musing on the nature of human experience. The Orphans are studies of the emotions and occasions with which we are at all some point afflicted or otherwise, observe.
Recasting her kneeling boy in various guises and with a multitude of changing companions, Kennedy evolves symbolic narratives that are highly personal, sometimes esoteric but thoroughly, palpably, beautifully sincere. The spider clasping one child’s head derives from the metaphorically laden sculpture of the French artist, Louise Bourgeois, who assigned to it the role of mother and repairer—functions undermined by the spider’s spindled body, which, subconsciously, alludes to characteristics more unseemly. Under the cover of Kennedy’s brightly hued and graphic styling, such symbolism is surprising and potentially, unnerving. Elsewhere, warfare is alluded to, as is the giving of birth, the act of love, the processes by which knowledge is acquired and money accrued—not always by virtuous means.
Though the deductions she arrives at in her work are sometimes sombre, the artist hopes a sense of optimism is inflected in her painting. Certainly, there is something intrinsically hopeful about the act of chronicling human experience, for by doing so, one attests to the idea that life is a phenomenon worthy of attempts to document and understand it. Indeed, the delicateness, the flawlessness with which Kennedy’s procession of painterly boys have been composed represents, despite the bad, her high regard for life, her belief in the artistic act as a process of redemption.
Elspeth Pitt
June 2009
left: The Sixth Orphan-Horse/Boy/Fish; centre: The Second Orphan-Bird/Girl/Lamb; right: The Fifth Orphan-Pig/Boy/Bird, all works oil on linen, 183 x 86cm
The Orphans continues my investigation on the theme of absence in childhood. The central character of a small boy kneeling in prayer is based on a postcard given to me as a child by my mother. At the time, it conveyed to me a sense of comfort and security.
This soft image underpins the series devised to portray a mix of human emotions including compassion, fear, empathy, anger, love and so on. The works experiment with a symbolic narrative characterised by the child as a solitary figure, reflective in a universal meditation of hope for the human condition.
Simone Kennedy
They say that hope is happiness
They say that hope is happiness;
But genuine Love must prize the past,
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first - they set the last,
And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.
Alas! It is delusion all;
The future cheats us from afar,
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.
George Gordon Lord Byron
TOP left: The First Orphan-Bird/Boy/Monkey; right: The Third Orphan-Spider/Girl/Dog, both works oil on linen, 183 x 86cm
BOTTOM left: The Eighth Orphan-Boy; right: The Seventh Orphan-Bird/Boy/Lamb, both works oil on linen, 97 x 56cm
SIMONE KENNEDY - CURRICULUM VITAE (Selected)
1963
Born, Acton, Ealing, UK
EDUCATION
1998-2005
MVA Masters by Research - Visual Arts, University of South Australia.
1982-85
Bachelor of Design - Graphic Design and Illustration, University of South Australia (formerly SACAE Underdale)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009
The Orphans, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Halflight: Notes on my father, University Of Adelaide
2008
Learning to Speak, Australian Galleries, Sydney
2007
Learning to Speak, SALA Festival exhibition, ARTLAB, Adelaide
2006
White Weld, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
2004
The Young Girls, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
2003
The Young Girls, SPAN Galleries, 1, 2 & 3, Melbourne
The Absent Mother, Light Square Gallery, Adelaide
2000
Sightings, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
1998
Naivety and Obsession, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2009
Linden Postcard Show 2009
2008
Not Quite Landscapes, Opening of the Gallery at Bird in Hand Winery, SA
Thoughts on Paper, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
2007
City of Whyalla Art Prize, Middleback Theatre, Whyalla
Prometheus Visual Arts Award, All Saints Anglican School, Merrimac, Queensland
2006
Greenhorns - Absent Mother drawings, Australian Galleries
My Happiness Exhibition ,Tin Cat Café, Adelaide
34th Alice Prize, Alice Springs
Heart of Australia Refugee Appeal, Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre.
2005
SEX Erotic Art Award, WA
Sydney Art Fair
2004
The Absent Mother three drawings selected for;
“Feminine Idiom” ARTS SA Emerging Curator Project, SA
3 Years to Life: Portraits of Refugee Children - Touring Exhibition, Flinders University City Gallery, State Library of South Australia.
Doll - The Doll as Effigy or Plaything, Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre
AWARDS/PRIZES
2007
Finalist for the City of Whyalla Art Prize 2007.
Finalist for the Prometheus Visual Art Award 2007.
2006
Adelaide Critics Circle Award Emerging Visual Artist.
Finalist for the 34th Alice Prize, Alice Springs.
2005
Finalist for the Erotic Art Award exhibition, WA.
2004
Finalist for the Cromwell Art Prize 2004. Sydney.
