Don Rankin

In late 1994 my art practice experienced two revelatory moments. I had taken a long look at the small still-life paintings by Chardin (18th century French) in the Louvre in Paris and was stunned by the power of his images of simple everyday things depicted on a shelf. On the same trip I also had the chance to view the small still-life paintings of Giorgio Morandi (20th century Italian) in Bologna. Prior to this I had been painting large abstract works influenced by other almost-contemporary practitioners. Both Chardin and Morandi were mavericks; they bucked the prevailing trends of their time and inspired the example which I was thereafter to follow.

On my return to Adelaide I set up a few similar scenarios in my studio and painted them. From then on I became hooked on the still-life genre and it has been my subject  ever since. Like Matisse and Baselitz, I do not feel the need to paint right up to the edges of a painting and I also like to leave traces of underlying paint visible (pentimenti) : one of my aesthetic concerns is to make the viewer aware of the paint and the painter’s touch – it creates a connection between viewer and subject. Figuration and abstraction to me are part of the same process – painting is all about the making of marks. Don Rankin, artist 2025