Juan Davila: the moral meaning of wilderness

Juan Davila, What about my desire?, 2009, oil on canvas, 204 x 270 cm. Juan Davila, courtesy Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art. Australian-Chilean artist Juan Dávila explores the role of art as social, cultural and political analysis in a new exhibition opening at the Drill Hall gallery this week. In the exhibition, Davila addresses modern society's ambivalent link to nature and the increasing fragmentation and consumerism of the arts. The 29 works, displayed for the first time, have been painted in the pre-modern plein air technique, but are based on speed of execution and the use of large scale canvases. In employing representations of the landscape, Davila argues for the expression of unconscious feeling in opposition to the moral, nationalistic and commercial foreclosure that our culture is currently facing. Born in Chile in 1946, Juan Davila moved to Melbourne in 1974 and is now considered one of Australia's leading contemporary painters.