Aaron Kinnane

Biography

• 

  Aaron Kinnane

  b.1977

  Education

  1998 BA Visual Art - Newcastle University
  2000 Assistant to Sandro Chia, Italy

• Solo Exhibitions

  2008 Art Melbourne, New Generation stand, Melbourne
  2008 Circadian Rhythm, Charles Hewitt, Sydney
  2006 Seven Steps Soft of Heaven, John Miller Galleries, Newcastle
  2005 Ships Will Carry Me, Pepperina Gallery, Newcastle

• Selected Group Exhibitions

  2008 Food for thought, NG Gallery, Chippendale
  2007 Let Them Roam, Harrison Galleries, Sydney
  2007 New Work, Cooks Hill Gallery, Newcastle
  2006 The Story Teller, Charles Hewitt, Sydney
  2006 Paper works, Charles Hewitt gallery, Sydney
  2005 Archibald prize entrant, subject Ben Gillies
  2004 One Moment , Church Space Gallery, Newcastle
  2003 Josephine Jean and the Ladies of the Sea, John Miller Galleries, Newcastle
  2001 I Promised You A Portrait, Starfish Gallery, Bondi
  2000 Scooter Crash, The Pasta Shop, Montalcino, Italy
  1998 Soup, Church Street Gallery, Newcastle

• The Bandit Moon and the Bastard Son

  The four snorting beasts underneath the Horsemen of the Apocalypse are not the exact same four painted here by Kinnane. But, as they say, the fruit never falls far from the goddamn tree. There is less black cruelty, certainly, less outright threat, here, safely, than in those ominous nostrils. Still, it has been many a night that the gun rattle of hooves on the stones outside has made its way into my sleep, and every time I look deeply into the lines between the old angels and the new, between the carnage of the past and that of today, there are goddamn horses everywhere and I can't stop them coming.

  It was a giant horse that took the city of Troy, one morning, years ago. At least 20 hands high, this one had been hollowed out, preserved, and its belly filled up with wood shavings and small fighting men, their blood foaming and ready to be spilled in the service of a truly mad man driven illogical by love. There were horses on the battlefields of Cannae, back in the day when Hannibal stuck it to a million Romans, wading about fetlock deep in those things lost in wars. There were horses at Gallipoli and the Battle of Siler River, and it was on their backs that young men were carried into the history books or to muddy holes. From that day to this, it has been on their backs that we have ridden to our wondrous, ridiculous, and unimaginable destinies, banners streaming behind us in the wind, cavalcades of the murderous and the love struck raising all hell in the name of The Bandit Moon and The Bastard Son, the ruined countryside flying by like we was magic.

  But I feel a little assuaged by these lanky grass eaters, the ones I see here that Kinnane has mustered out of his satchel. They are the ones that conversed with poor Gulliver, the ones that the poet rode, the steeds sent forth with a messenger and a small, silk purse to woo the long-haired maiden. I have heard about these goddamn nags. Despite their more noble breeding, it is an equally miserable history, this quest of sonnets and filtered sunlight and clearings in the forest and pilgrims with good intentions. For the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it's a long, long road. So how do you think we got there? Ain't nobody walking, that's for goddamn sure. It was them beasts that carried us, singing and howling, thrashing about like illness or scanning the horizon for silhouettes, the ruined countryside flying by like we was magic.

  Jake Lynch