KEVIN Lincoln might just be Australia’s most underrated artist.
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Lincoln, self-taught and known for his self-effacing humility, has long been lauded by art critics and experts for his still life, abstract work and exploration of form.
The Hobart-born but Melbourne-based artist has come a long way since his humble beginnings in working-class Tasmania and training in trades such as welding and boilermaking.
Forgoing formal art training, Lincoln has set his own path to the point where critics like John McDonald have described him as one of the country’s most underrated artists and has exhibited consistently for the past 50 years.
Melancholy and reflective, his work from about 1990 to present is currently showing at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in an exhibition entitled Kevin Lincoln: The Eye's Mind.
Independent Melbourne-based curator Elizabeth Cross said Lincoln never set out to create art as part of a career.
“He’s a very self-effacing sort of person...he paints because he needs to, it’s a sort of salvation,” she said.
“He found his own voice and found this allowed him to be the kind of person he wanted. This gave him a sense of purpose. He works out of compulsion.
“There’s a lovely thing we have up in the gallery. He said ‘I cannot burn or destroy my paintings, they are who I am, my life is mapped out in them’.”
Ms Cross agreed with McDonald’s view of Lincoln’s true worth in contemporary Australian art.
“Absolutely, I think he is becoming one of the grand old men of Australian art. Were he not such a self-effacing modest person, I think he would be much better known.”
Ms Cross said his works ranged from “beautiful still lifes” such as knives in the kitchen or “aubergines glistening in their plump skins” to more abstract explorations.
“Because his is a very strong authentic voice not everyone will respond to it, but if you do, you know you will respond to the inner light,” she said.
“It’s like the residue of a dream that one can see in colour and textures...but they sit hand-in-hand with this very rich mixture of large still lifes and paintings. They’re so poised and so contemplative that you can just go on looking at them.
“I always tease him and say the self portraits don’t look anything like you and he says ‘but they feel like me’.”
Kevin Lincoln: The Eye’s Mind will exhibit at the Ian Potter Foundation Gallery, Art Gallery of Ballarat, until Sunday June 19. Entry is free.
For more information, visit www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au