Four large-scale paintings have been produced for this exhibition and in addition a fifth will be completed over the course of the exhibition period. All are reworkings of five classic French paintings. Thomas Hoareau has changed the settings of his ‘homages’ to contemporary Midland. His figurative paintings are layered with an underlying social commentary which is the common and intrinsic feature of the original nineteenth-century works.
The work in the exhibition forms the creative component towards Hoareau’s completion of a Master of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts at the University of Western Australia. The five paintings in this exhibition are a continuation of my use of the homage, an artistic device that I have used at different times in my work since 1997. I often find when making art I do not know where to begin. The homage is a means of setting a context to my artistic production. Irony and humour are often aspects of the homage and these I specifically use to unravel the conundrum that is modern life. The homage functions as a conceptual device, a creative window that aids in defining some of the more elusive aspects of contemporary life by making direct reference to the past.
Thomas Hoareau is a prizewinning artist who has exhibited regularly in Perth since 1981 and is represented in the National Gallery, the State Gallery, and various public and private collections. Thomas continues to practise his art at his Viveash studio.
