by Annette Basile
Cast:
Dale Frank, Roslyn Oxley, Tony Oxley, Nick Mitzevich, Deborah Hart
Intro:
The excellent Dale Frank – Nobody’s Sweetie is equal measure about the art and the artist.
The term ‘anti-aesthetic’ is mentioned more than once in this documentary about Australian abstract artist Dale Frank. His not-for-all-tastes work shatters boundaries – it’s not always pretty but it is always challenging, and the colours are often iridescent.
We find him living in a grand home with an Irish Wolfhound and dozens of other animals – but these other critters took a trip to the taxidermist before arriving at the Frank residence. That residence, in the Hunter Valley, sits on 50 acres of gorgeous land that the artist has turned into a botanical garden, replete with palm trees rescued from development sites. We look over Frank’s shoulder as he pores over spreadsheets on a computer – transplanting palm trees is an expensive operation.
A self-taught artist who works in various mediums with a mix of materials – varnish, found objects, paint – Frank has also been a performance artist. One slice of black & white archival footage shows him outside of a school, basically annoying schoolkids – it’s borderline menacing. “If they didn’t talk to me, I would use my foot and touch their leg,” says Frank. “Listen, if this happened today it just wouldn’t be allowed.”
Says artist and curator Jane Rankin-Reid: “He had a long, very developed series of performance pieces … ‘Let me set everyone’s comfort zone at edge, and then let’s see what happens’.”
Frank is now in his mid-60s and has stomped through the art establishment’s comfort zone since the 1980s, when he was recognised as both an enfant terrible and one of Australia’s most important emerging artists. Frank is a fascinating character – something of a prankster, which is evident in his work. A somewhat solitary man, he was recently diagnosed on the autism spectrum. For him, the diagnosis was a “moment of clarity” that was delivered with “blackening clouds and thunder”, he says in the candid interviews that are woven through this film.
This is the first feature as director for Jenny Hicks, who has worked as an editor since the 1980s. She confidently wades into Frank’s life, crafting a film that will appeal as much to art buffs as to newcomers.
There’s a lot of context. We understand where he came from – including a visit to the small, now derelict, dusty classroom he was taught in – where he’s been, and where he might be going.
The excellent Dale Frank – Nobody’s Sweetie is equal measure about the art and the artist. You’ll never see palm trees in quite the same way again…
