KENNEDY, Robert
EXODUS: Hobie Porter

Online Review
http://www.artinterview.com.au/event-articles/exodus-robbie-porter/
Retrieved April 2007

The title of Hobie Porter’s exhibition Exodus is skilfully connected to the images it contains. There is a strong sense of freedom in his works, of a free environment and a free nature, which stamps its mark on the visual experience of this exhibition.

While not wanting to push his images and ideas into our vision, Porter’s paintings are loud, and visually dynamic. You might have seen Porter recently on the ABC television show Painting Australia, his work produced for this show, Reservoir Ruin, also exhibits in Exodus at the Art House Gallery in Rushcutters Bay.

All of Porter’s images in this exhibition are filled with the real and the surreal, which is a visual metaphor, applied as an in an out of focus technique, to talk to us about the freedom of nature, and what we are as humans. With a directness and a realistic view of a medium (nature), that has no perceived voice, Porter gives sound to a wanting nature through his brush.

The realness of nature and the soft focus (human constructions) are prominent in his works. Rarely do we see painting with ideas like these going on in them. These statements while quite present, can have an interesting but also deterring view on the overall quality of the works, but perhaps that’s due to the lack of focus that most of us place on nature.

Some of the images can make you feel quite edgy; when you see up close the veins and cells of leaf, you get a sense of how close we are to aspects of nature. This coming back at you from the construction of a human hand makes you ask, what else haven’t I noticed?

Porter says that he wants his work to “stay and niggle at viewers”, and to “open a culture of inter-connectedness between nature and us”. Ali Yeldham, the director of Art House Gallery says that Porter’s images “sweep us up into the clouds”. Whatever view you gain from these paintings, sometimes that view can punch you in the face.

The direct representation of nature that Porter throws at us, is in many ways not subtle, even though the images express a definite sensitivity, the closeness, the direct force of his images are screaming at us – take notice.

Hobie Porter’s works are in a word – mesmerising. Visually they are a trick, like what Dali and others have applied, and like Dali there’s so much that’s said within this guise: applied ideas and what can be seen as moral statements through the visual take a while to sink in, but once there they embed themselves into the conscious.

Porter still has a way to go as an artist, but with ideas and visions like these, he is well placed to develop a successful career; we can all look forward to seeing what comes next.