Neil Haddon's recent paintings employ a collage-like approach, blending seemingly disparate sources to create artworks that reflect movement, relocation, and the renegotiation of meaning within diverse cultural influences. In part, this draws on his experiences of migration to Tasmania, delving into the poetic search for meaning in the unfamiliar landscapes of a new home.
Using materials and processes that bring together fragments of artworks by Gustave Doré, Paul Gauguín, and John Glover, Haddon constructs abstracted compositions. His paintings depict a state of flux, where significance and association are continually renegotiated, influenced by the interrelation of old and new places.
His work features dislocated imagery that merges past and present times, compounding memories, associations, and representations formed elsewhere with those of the place where he lives now. The transitory, unfixed imagery reflects experiences of migration and intertwines with the fraught histories of lutruwita/Tasmania.
Haddon has frequently used imagery from Gauguín's 'Mata Mua' (1892), a painting he visited during two pivotal moments of dislocation in his life, once in Madrid and once in New York. Similarly, Haddon's use of Doré's scenes from the Epsom Derby and Glover's stylized trees from 'A corrobery of natives in Mills Plains' (1832) adds layers to the narrative of relocation. The 19th-century sources not only convey historical distance but also evoke an emotive connection as the migrant returns to a changed place of origin.
Haddon refers to these paintings by other artists as meaningful waymarkers of his migratory journey from the United Kingdom via Spain to lutruwita. In essence, his work is a migrant’s view of a place out of place; a landscape of continual arrival.
Haddon continues to use this migratory aesthetic to explore new relationships with archival material as well as a host of other references and associations. He approaches this material as a migrant as if encountering a new place, weaving his own associations, empathies, and memories. Through this encounter, new tales emerge, resonating with themes of loss and discovery.
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
