Artists statement

David Noonan is a London-based Australian artist with a growing international reputation. He studied art in Ballarat before moving to Melbourne in 1992 to complete his education at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Noonan art is known for its complex layers of historical, theatrical and cultural references. Animals, actors and masked figures are recurring motifs that imbue his art with a magical atmosphere that is suggestive of childhood memories or half-forgotten dreams. Noonan has begun to treat his imagery - found and created - as a sculptural material. Drawing from an interest in historical Japanese ‘boro’ textiles, in which indigo-dyed, cotton fabrics are reused and recycled, Noonan collages the fabric beneath the image, and in so doing, manipulates the image itself. Here, his muse’s face bears a painted mask, a device traditionally used to reveal as much it disguises, a play on the nature of truth.