Is Dan Kyle the next Arthur Boyd of Australian landscapes?
I’m going to say it right now, I love Dan Kyle. He’s a young guy, living in the mountains taking an obsessive look at the Australian bush around him. To be honest, it’s not the man I love, it’s the artist.
He paints trees again and again and again. The pale trunks of eucalyptus trees like ghosts stalking the landscape. They’re silent witness to what’s going on about them, the birds, the rainfall and the incursions of people.
They stand in judgement, looking at us to look within ourselves.
Well, that’s how they make me feel. That’s the funny thing about the Australian bush, I have never felt alone in it. I have always felt watched. It’s weird because I spent my entire childhood playing in the scrub, building cubbyhouses on the banks of Burrell Creek, yet there were always quiet eyes in the forest.
Dan probably has a completely different take on this work. I’ve never spoken to Dan and I have never read about his work – I’ve only looked at it. Followed his works as they progress on Instagram.
It’s rare to find works of art that make you feel something so powerful and that’s why for his use of colour and subject, I really think Dan Kyle is going to change the Australian landscape, show it to us in ways that only Arthur Boyd has dared explore before.
Dan Kyle's latest show, From the Turon to the Colo is showing at Defiance Gallery, Newtown until 1 April.
