‘Tough, cerebral and prickly’: The 72-year-old punk artist you need to know about
“Punk” artist Janenne Eaton may be 72 but she’s not slowing down any time soon and is currently exhibiting dozens of works in the biggest show of her life.
Variously described as an artist’s artist, technically brilliant and punk – “tough, cerebral and prickly” is how one reviewer described her art – the St Kilda-based artist is showing 44 works at Geelong Art Gallery from her 45-year career.
Artist Janenne Eaton.Credit: Joe Armao
She works most days, either in her studio at home or another nearby space, provided through the City of Port Phillip.
The built environment and the natural world are common preoccupations. These days, Eaton has largely swapped the canvas for HIPS - high-impact polystyrene - a shiny plastic base that creates a reflective picture surface.
“My work is really about history and politics and the urgent issues of our day, and the world around me is the stimulus, as well as politics,” she says. “I’m very interested in the way we can observe change through time, not only materially but culturally and socially, and it all kind of plays together, those main planks and how they interact in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.”
After growing up in Melbourne, Eaton moved to Perth in 1974 with her archaeologist partner, and lived there for six years. That time was critical, she says, informing distinct ideas about making art, and melding her interest in history with anthropological perspectives.
Eaton in her St Kilda studio.Credit: Bill Ferguson
Eaton has also been a significant influence on two generations of Australian artists, first in Canberra and then at the Victoria College of the Arts, starting in 1992 and becoming head of painting from 1999 to 2011.
“Teaching has been a major part of my life, continuously since I was 24. I’ve finished now but it was the world to me,” she says. “I still miss the students and the dialogue and to see how younger artists are thinking, being there to give responses that are practical and inspirational. I loved it.”
Head of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Jason Smith, who curated the Geelong show, was taught drawing by Eaton 40 years ago. (One of the gallery’s art-handling staff was her student 20 years ago.)
“She is a wonderfully, technically brilliant artist but she’s the total package: a fearsome intellect, she’s tough politically, philosophically wide-ranging, just a really interesting person. She’s just cool,” says Smith.
Detail of Eaton’s Banner for the Deputy Sheriff 2006, enamel paint on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.Credit: Mark Ashkanasy
She was a hard taskmaster, he says, “but she was a bloody good teacher because being an artist requires discipline”.
Other past students include Simon McGlinn, Sam George, Damiano Bertoli, George Cue, Lucina Lane, Rohan Schwartz, Nick Selenitsch and Lisa Radford, with many contributing to a crowd-funding campaign for the Geelong show.
“Her work since the beginning of her career has told us something utterly important and unique about our contemporary lives,” says Smith. “Her work is a strident critique of how we live; it also enlivens our imaginations.”
Janenne Eaton: Lines of Sight - Frame and Horizon is at Geelong Art Gallery until August 17.
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