KEN SEARLE’S 1998 PAINTING OF BALLARAT

Through a unique research project and partnership with Australian National University,
Federation University and the Art Gallery of Ballarat, the Eureka Centre presents Ken Searles’ monumental painting, ‘Ballarat’ (1998).

Commissioned by Federation University in 1998, Ken Searle spent several months painting Ballarat’s urban landscape, from his preferred vantage point of Black Hill, capturing what he described as the “beating heart of the city”. Recalling the experience Searle wrote, “As I sat on the streets sketching in oil paint, pencil and charcoal, people would sometimes come out from their houses, bringing corned beef sandwiches and cups of tea, and staying to have a chat. All of this helped me build up a picture of the place”.

The resulting painting unfolds in an impressive panoramic time-capsule, revealing a subtext of stories and perspectives. It presents a disrupted vision of Ballarat, that is at once disorientating yet familiar. The painting’s concentrated yet fragmented composition integrates and reconciles the longstanding tension between notions of static heritage preservation and the dynamism of contemporary culture.

Searle’s painting is presented in this exhibition alongside an interactive digital representation of the work to allow for community-generated interpretation. This process seeks to draw on local knowledge, lived experience and personal memory to understand how people in their diversity feel about their city and community today. It will be a simple demonstration of principles of cultural mediation: community knowledge as a contribution to museum knowledge, engagement with art as a meeting of subjectivities.

This project is funded by the Australia Research Council, and is a partnership between the Eureka Centre, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Federation University and the Australian National University. The ethical aspects of this research have been approved by the ANU Human Research Ethics Committee.

About the artist

Ken Searle was born in Sydney in 1951 and grew up around Cooks River, in Sydney’s south-west suburbs where he still lives today. A self-taught artist, he exhibited at Watters Gallery from 1976 until the gallery’s closure in 2019. He is best known for his large paintings of suburban and industrial landscapes in Australian cities. He has also painted rural and regional landscapes, including in the Central Desert during his tenure as an art advisor to Papunya Tula. His work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Victoria and Federation University.

Image: Ken Searle, ‘Ballarat’ 1998, oil on canvas, 87 x 350 cm, Commissioned with support from the Australia Council of the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body. Collection: Federation University Australia. Reproduced courtesy of the artist.