Dale Frank’s highly conceptualized abstractions convey an overriding fascination with the inherent plasticity of paint. Seductive poured pockets of varnish are punctuated by creeping, undulating accumulations of colour. These sometimes hallucinatory oscillations typify Frank’s paintings as evidenced in Sore Throat.  

Exhibition Dates: 28 August – 22 September 2007

Dale Frank’s highly conceptualized abstractions convey an overriding fascination with the inherent plasticity of paint.  Seductive poured pockets of varnish are punctuated by creeping, undulating accumulations of colour. These sometimes hallucinatory oscillations typify Frank’s paintings as evidenced in Sore Throat.  

Executed without a brush in pure varnish, the beguiling spilling of paint into pooled, organic forms belies Frank’s meticulous choreography of temperature and colour. Both technician and alchemist, Frank’s process is entirely cerebral.  He begins by working on a canvas horizontally, pouring successive layers upon the prime surface whilst carefully controlling humidity and density (along with drying and reaction times). The contradictions of movement and stasis are necessary elements of the work’s production; wedges and blocks are placed beneath the paintings and they are repeatedly angled to create desired effects.

Frank creates an exquisite tension between surface, depth and content manifest in his union of abstract paintings with elaborate titles.  While their relationship to the paintings may seem ambiguous, they strongly influence the viewer’s response. Frank observes; ‘…People read things into them.  There is electricity when they try to connect them to the paintings. You get a current going between the title, the viewer and the work.  Sometimes it induces in people associations I would never have dreamed of.’ 

—Serena Bentley

Dale Frank has been showing with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1982. His career spans more than twenty years. In 1983, he was included in the exhibition Panorama della post - critica: critica ed arte at the Museo Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa along with Thomas Lawson and Anselm Kiefer (curated by Helena Kontova). In 1984 he was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale. Returning to Australia, in 1990 he was included in the 8th Biennale of Sydney (curated by Rene Block). A major solo retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000. His paintings are held in every major public collection in Australia and in numerous private and corporate collections in Australia, Europe and the U.S.. In 2005 Frank won The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria. A major new monograph on Frank’s work will be available in late 2007.

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Dale Frank 1. The Unattended Funeral where you should be glad what's in my head stays in my head, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 300 cm; enquire
1. The Unattended Funeral where you should be glad what's in my head stays in my head, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 300 cm
Dale Frank 12. The Unattended Funeral colours only in your head when you stare into the glare of the lone Sun, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
12. The Unattended Funeral colours only in your head when you stare into the glare of the lone Sun, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 3. The Unattended Funeral laid on a slab like melancholy raspberries on your fine bone china, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
3. The Unattended Funeral laid on a slab like melancholy raspberries on your fine bone china, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 4. The Unattended Funeral as drowning pores enlarge and open, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
4. The Unattended Funeral as drowning pores enlarge and open, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 5. The Unattended Funeral coldest before dawn as the last , 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
5. The Unattended Funeral coldest before dawn as the last , 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 6. The Unattended Funeral remembering when yurts and domes were futuristic , 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
6. The Unattended Funeral remembering when yurts and domes were futuristic , 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 8. The Unattended Funeral with Lyrics like sound bites that give you reason that Titles don't, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
8. The Unattended Funeral with Lyrics like sound bites that give you reason that Titles don't, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 7. The Unattended Funeral when you used to write long letters in a three way mirror, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
7. The Unattended Funeral when you used to write long letters in a three way mirror, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 2. The Unattended Funeral on another dead end road to nowhere, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 300 cm; enquire
2. The Unattended Funeral on another dead end road to nowhere, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 300 cm
Dale Frank 13. Skeet Ulrich, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
13. Skeet Ulrich, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 14. Jason Priestly, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
14. Jason Priestly, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 15. The Unattended Funeral where you may feel Extra-Ordinary, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
15. The Unattended Funeral where you may feel Extra-Ordinary, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 16. The Unattended Funeral when Artist's tamper with their corpses, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
16. The Unattended Funeral when Artist's tamper with their corpses, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 19. The Unattended Funeral where you can change the world now you can afford the right address, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
19. The Unattended Funeral where you can change the world now you can afford the right address, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 17. The Unattended Funeral where all art looks better on U Tube, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
17. The Unattended Funeral where all art looks better on U Tube, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 18. Jamie Bamber, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
18. Jamie Bamber, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 20. The Unattended Funeral the artist's unattended living funeral, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
20. The Unattended Funeral the artist's unattended living funeral, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 21. The Unattended Funeral but he was such a Jerk he attended his own Funeral, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
21. The Unattended Funeral but he was such a Jerk he attended his own Funeral, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 10. The Unattended Funeral where a beautiful soul masks a stranger stronger indifference, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
10. The Unattended Funeral where a beautiful soul masks a stranger stronger indifference, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 9. The Unattended Funeral where both your indifference and your lust turn red, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
9. The Unattended Funeral where both your indifference and your lust turn red, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 11. Maxwell Zagorski, 0; varnish on canvas; 200 x 260 cm; enquire
11. Maxwell Zagorski, 0
varnish on canvas
200 x 260 cm
Dale Frank 22. Corey Sevier, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
22. Corey Sevier, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 23. Jim Verraros, 2007; varnish on canvas; 200 x 200 cm; enquire
23. Jim Verraros, 2007
varnish on canvas
200 x 200 cm
Dale Frank 24. The Unattended Funeral surrounded by Soul boys, 2007; varnish on canvas; 160 x 120 cm; enquire
24. The Unattended Funeral surrounded by Soul boys, 2007
varnish on canvas
160 x 120 cm
Dale Frank 25. The Unattended Funeral caring too much what people will think when you're dead, 2007; varnish on canvas; 160 x 120 cm; enquire
25. The Unattended Funeral caring too much what people will think when you're dead, 2007
varnish on canvas
160 x 120 cm
Dale Frank 26. The Unattended Funeral where there is something about Art we should not like, 2007; varnish on canvas; 160 x 120 cm; enquire
26. The Unattended Funeral where there is something about Art we should not like, 2007
varnish on canvas
160 x 120 cm
Dale Frank 27. The Unattended Funeral to love me as a freebie for an hour, 2007; varnish on canvas; 160 x 120 cm; enquire
27. The Unattended Funeral to love me as a freebie for an hour, 2007
varnish on canvas
160 x 120 cm