Haddon makes paintings by cutting up and recombining pieces from older artworks—bits of Doré, Gauguin, and Glover—and folding them into his own abstract compositions. He does this because these images matter to him personally: they’re tied to places he’s lived and moments when he moved from one country to another.
Since he’s migrated from the UK to Spain and then to Tasmania, his paintings carry that unsettled feeling of being between places. Familiar images show up in unfamiliar settings. Things don’t quite line up. The work feels like memory does when you’re far from home—mixed, layered, and slightly out of place.
Gauguin’s Mata Mua appears often because Haddon saw it during two major relocations, so it’s become a kind of emotional landmark. Doré’s racing scenes depict the Derby at Epsom, the town where he was born and raised, and Glover’s colonial Tasmanian landscapes add other layers: nostalgia, distance, and the complicated history of lutruwita/Tasmania, his current home.
In short, he treats these older artworks as waypoints in his own journey. His paintings aren’t about perfect coherence; they’re about what it feels like to arrive somewhere new while still carrying pieces of the old place with you. Haddon treats painting as a process of enduring arrival.
2026, oil on canvas, 91 × 81 cm
2026, oil on canvas, 168 cm x 153 cm
2026, oil on canvas, 91 cm x 81 cm
2026, oil on canvas, 91 × 81 cm
2023
oil and acrylic on aluminium panel
170 x 150 cm
2024
oil, acrylic and lacquer on aluminium panel
140 x 130 cm
2024
oil, acrylic and lacquer on aluminium panel
140 x 130 cm
2023, oil paint and lacquer on aluminium panel, 140 cm x 130 cm
2022, acrylic, oil, screen print and lacquer on aluminium
130 x 140 cm, collection of Crowne Plaza
Selected for the Sulman Prize, AGNSW, 2022, private collection Melbourne
acrylic, marker pen and lacquer on aluminium panel, 77.5 x 65 cm
October 2021
Acrylic and oil on aluminium
35 x 32 cm framed
2021, oil paint and lacquer over digital print, 180 cm x 240 cm, collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
2021
147 cm x 135 cm, acrylic, oil, screen print and lacquer on aluminium panel.
2021, acrylic on canvas, 168 x 153 cm
paintings and other components installed at Bett Gallery, 2019
2018-2019
180 cm x 150 cm
oi and enamel on aluminium
2018, oil paint, enamel and lacquer on aluminium panel, 170 cm x 150 cm, collection of Hadley’s Hotel, Hobart
2018 - 2019,
acrylic and digital print on canvas, 137.5 x 122 cm, private collection, Tasmania
2017 - 2020, acrylic, enamel, oil and lacquer on aluminium panels, 240 cm x 360 cm
2019
Enamel, oil and digital print on aluminium
72 cm x 60 cm, private collection Tasmania
2018
enamel, digital print and oil paint on aluminium panel, 150 cm x 122 cm, private collection, Tasmania
2019
oil, enamel and digital print on aluminium
122 cm x 110 cm, collection of Carol Westmore, Patterdale
2015, enamel and oil paint on aluminium panel, 180 cm x 150 cm
2017
acrylic and acrylic on canvas, 152 x 137.5 cm
2019
enamel, oil and digital print on aluminium
130 cm x 122 cm, private collection Hobart
2019
Enamel, oil and digital print on aluminium
72 cm x 60 cm
2016
oil and enamel paint on aluminium panel, 71 cm x 70 cm
This is a selection of work from the past 15 years or so.
Some things change. Some stay the same.
abraded gloss enamel paint on aluminium panel, 2007, 180 cm x 160 cm,
Collection National Gallery of Victoria: Neil Haddon
2013, high gloss enamel paint on aluminium, 150 cm x 170 cm,
collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
2007, gloss enamel paint on aluminium
2011, partially abraded gloss enamel paint on aluminium panel, 170 cm x 150 cm, collection City of Whyalla
2011, enamel and oil paint on aluminium panel, 170 cm x 150 cm
2009, gloss enamel paint on aluminium panel
2010, enamel paint on aluminium panel, 160 cm x 150 cm, collection Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
2009, enamel paint on aluminium panel, 90 cm x 75 cm
Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart: Disorientation, curated by Paul Zika, 2005
2008, high gloss enamel paint on aluminium panel, 170 cm x 150 cm, awarded the Glover Prize 2008
2014, enamel paint and clear coat on aluminium panel 64 cm x 55 cm
2014, enamel, acrylic paint and clear coat on aluminium panel 68 cm x 58 cm
