Perfect men, imperfect world

One of Australia’s greatest living artists is to have a collection of his male nude paintings exhibited in a Sydney art gallery.

Thirty of renowned surrealist artist James Gleeson’s works, which combine Dali-esque landscapes with homoerotic and hyper-realistic representations of naked men, will be on display at the Wagner Art Gallery from 26 May.

Gleeson’s ability to render the male nude is unequalled in this country, art historian Dr Garry Darby told Sydney Star Observer.

Nadine Wagner, who is staging the exhibition, is enamoured by the powerful works. No one could deny how well they are painted, she says. It’s like God created man and out from the dawn comes this Adam.

The paintings include Summer, which presents the nude as an almost Christ-like figure exuding light to those all around.

Works such as Totem In Arcadia, meanwhile, are far more disturbing.

The anatomically perfect male figure remains, but now juxtaposed with a disturbing landscape made up of the body parts of other male figures almost melting into one another.

In Gleeson’s later work -“ he is now in his 90s -“ this landscape, or what the artist calls the psychoscape, takes over entirely, with the male supplanted.

Male nudes are no strangers in art, but they are often classical in appearance.

Gleeson’s nudes, being contemporary in look, are all the more shocking and expose how little the male body is seen outside of pornography.

When one sifts through the history of Western art there have been precious few painters who have pursued this subject, Darby says.

I think we’re very lucky, Wagner adds. And the public are lucky to have this collection of paintings in a gallery to look at.

The paintings, all being sold by one collector, will be on display at Paddington’s Wagner Art Gallery from 26 May to 21 June.