Visual arts / John Brack x Noel McKenna: A face in the mirror. At the National Portrait Gallery, until July 19. Reviewed by KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.

This exhibition brings together artists John Brack and Noel McKenna.

The connection between them becomes apparent in the ensuing dialogue that is created by the juxtaposition of their works. Connected by stylistic traits, themes and ideas, the underlying narratives emerge as the themes and the images connect and disconnect in a way that is at times disturbing and unsettling.

The tangible connection between these two artists is intriguing, as John Brack was born in 1920 and was working as an artist when Noel Mckenna was born in 1956.

John Brack came to public notice in the ’50s with his paintings of post-war life in Melbourne. Among his most well-known paintings, Collins Street,5pm.1955 (sadly not in the exhibition) is an image of anonymous workers leaving the office at the end of the day.

The New House 1953, is another not unkind version of suburban life where he depicts Australian post war aspirations. Yet in his later works his images of suburbia and the human condition display a palpable sense of tension as if emotion is frozen and repressed.

Noel McKenna initially studied architecture in Brisbane but, given advice that his technical drawing was not good enough, he attended art school in Brisbane and later in Sydney.

Like Brack, McKenna is concerned with modern life, its isolation and loneliness. The anonymity of the crowd in Brack’s painting of Collins Street commuters and his arrangements of objects in other works like scissors and cutlery to symbolise human conformity is reflected in McKenna’s painting of the railway station, Light Rail 2021, where each figure inhabits a world of their own making.

Brack uses space,  the tilted floor or the flattening of images,  to give a sense of uneasiness.

In the work Latin American Grand Final  his dancers are compressed into a suffocating space that reflects the garish unreality of the glitz of the ballroom dancing scene.

The portraits of his daughters reflect a certain domestic intimacy; however, their grimacing faces although very comic suggest a view of the world that is anything but sentimental.

McKenna suggests this unease through creating interior images of large empty spaces. In such works as Audrey and Decimus 2025, every object, the lamp, the coffee table , the chair is isolated. Only the books suggest some form of escape. Small animals like long rangy cats and wiry sharp-nosed dogs,  inhabit these spaces as if waiting for something to happen. These depictions of small animals are engaging and reflect McKenna’s love of animals and their companionship. Humans rarely appear.

McKenna’s view of childhood in his painting Children’s Ride 1989 of a small figure of boy and a toy railway isolated in the featureless landscape suggests the intimidating sense of the unknown world beyond the small figure’s comprehension – an unknowable aspect of life where the artist himself may feel he is not in control.

This may account for McKenna’s work Self 2011 where he is drawn to making a chart plotting aspects of the events in his life, each incident such as marriage, illness and the death of a pet given equal status – or in his other works such as Big Things, Australia 2004 where he locates on a map of Australia images of the large civic sculptures that inhabit Australian towns, like  the Big Pineapple and the Big Banana.

John Brack and Noel McKenna. present us with works that are intriguing and disquieting where the human condition can sometimes seem bleak. Yet the works of both artists can also be tender, intriguing and touched with wry humour.

It is an exhibition for reflecting upon the human condition but also an exhibition to savour and enjoy.