David Jolly, 2008, Reception, Melbourne
Summary
David Jolly has been honing his considerable skills as a painter for more than two decades. His meticulous and detailed paintings have a contagious air of quiet reflection about them, suggesting the artist's easy relationship with his surroundings. They also demonstrate his talent for incisive observation and his openness to his subject; while he is alive to the visual minutiae of a scene, his paintings depict the quintessence of his subject.
In 2008, the City of Melbourne commissioned Jolly to create two works for its collection, resulting in 'Reception' and 'Text'. 'Reception' is a foil to the gritty street scene recorded in 'Text', with both works executed in oil on the back of glass. Jolly conveys all the bourgeois opulence of the Australia Club in this work, symbolised by the grand, illuminated chandelier. Jolly liked the way he observed the glass of the chandelier through the glass of the window to the street, then, of course, painting the work on another iteration of glass. Founded in 1878 on William Street, central Melbourne, the Australia Club was established for the convenience, pleasure and enterprise of Victorian settler businessmen. Jolly's ability to capture vertiginous movement in this symbol of wealth invests it with a life and currency that distils class and brings history into communion with the present day.
In contrast, 'Text' preserves a moment of the ephemeral street art for which Melbourne has become renowned. The markings and inscriptions of street art are often concealed no sooner than they are made, rendering the form as much a temporal as spatial practice. The refined brushwork and the reflective surface of 'Text' lend an intense realism to what appears a candid and not uncommon glimpse into one of Melbourne's city laneways, the markings wallpapering doors, bin and wall without hierarchy or discrimination.
The Art and Heritage Collection also holds David Jolly's 'Timetravel', acquired in 2015. This work provides another window onto the thriving urban organism that is Melbourne.
