Woke Up on Fire, an exhibition of 15 large scale paintings explore the artist’s ongoing interest and romance with the Myths and the cultural significance of Super Heroes. In Lister’s newest body of work, the artist captures the human connection, and our collective fascination with Heroes and Villains; good and evil, and the power they hold metaphorically. Comprised of bold gestures, drips, smears, and comic book colors the painted subjects float on stark white backgrounds as if to be idealized like historical figures hanging in the halls of powerful institutions.
The canvases include a type of iconography, relating to each mythologized figure. The words and poetic language compositionally float on the canvas, giving the viewer a raw glimpse into the artist’s thinking, and creative process of working and reworking, mapping the painting, shaping the identity and developing the narrative. These verbal markers are like that of a surgeon’s notations on human skin, or a mad scientist whose thoughts of an idea run unstoppable across a chalk board as a stream of thinking toward an ultimate place of clarity and resolve.
For me….these paintings hold fifteenth-century folk-law warnings and mystic superstations of the ancient world. In the other, one finds ones self slapped with pop puzzle lashings. Visually wet, dripping and hyped-up on neon flavored cereal as Saturday morning cartoons scream out about a confused moral fortitude. These paintings were made during the ad break. There is a sticker upon the television that reads; “This is a sometimes thing”.
-Anthony Lister
Born in 1979 in Brisbane, Australia, he studied at the Queensland College of Art. Lister helped pioneer the street art movement in his home city as a teenager and is considered Australia’s premier street artist.
Opening Reception
Dec 4, 2019, 7 PM
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