Geelong Gallery has received a pop of colour to inspire the community to confront what they ‘DUNNO’ ahead of a new exhibition opening next year.
A five-panel artwork piece by contemporary artist Jon Campbell that collectively displayed the work DUNNO is now wrapped around the gallery’s rear facade overlooking Johnstone Park.
Geelong Gallery Director and chief executive Humphrey Clegg said he was excited to see the artwork launched ahead of Mr Campbell’s solo exhibition yEAH/dUNNO in March next year.
“Geelong Gallery is excited to be presenting the work of Jon Campbell, who is one of Australia’s most highly regarded artists,” he said.
“We are delighted that Campbell’s work will challenge our visitors’ experience of the Gallery, with a bold intervention on the heritage facade.
“We are looking forward to visitors embracing the sentiment of the work before their arrival, and we love that Jon has empowered them to say DUNNO.”
Mr Campbell said his art had mainly been text-based for the last 20 years and that he loved to explore the use of words and phrases as imagery.
“It’s an ongoing exploration of the visual potential of words through the use of vernacular language and popular culture,” he said.
“The viewer becomes part of the work as they unravel the word or phrase, which in this case is around the building’s architecture.
“Snippets of a conversation, argument and dialogue are transformed using the conventions of formal abstraction and graphic design to both confuse the original function of the words and phrases.”
