A Rose By Any Other Name

By Benjamen Judd

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With practically a whole week of public holidays on the go, why not take advantage of your time off and experience what the local art scene has to offer? In other words, get yourself down to Chalk Horse and ‘ave a (Joanna) gander at the latest exhibition by James Kerr before it shuts shop this Saturday, April 26.

“Blooms” is an ongoing exploration of a continual theme in Kerr’s work – the exploration of the culture of flowers, in particular roses. Kerr’s roses are lifted from this culture and are a little hesitant and doubtful. Salvador Dali once said, “The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot”. What characterises Kerr’s work and what makes it contemporary, is that he equivocates between the Romantic and the iconoclastic, between the celebration of the expansive culture of the rose and it’s declassing. The rose is obviously one of the classic tropes of Western art and literature but Kerr adeptly repositions our expectations of the rose.

What we love personally is the utter deconstruction of the rose form that Kerr presents us – a flower that has been so artfully (and genetically) moderated in botanists and enthusiasts search for perfection that any idiosyncrasy can be considered malign. Obviously being on team unique, we still find a morbid fascination in the strict controls placed on something so utterly mundane as a flower for the sole purpose of big business.

James Kerr’s “Blooms” is now showing at Chalk Horse Gallery, Lower Ground 171 William Street Darlinghurst. Last day of the exhibition is Saturday, 26 April.