Juan Davila opens 9 September 2006 and features seminal works
such as Davila’s epic 1980s murals, rarely seen Chilean pieces and new
work created specifically for the show.

The Chilean-born artist, who relocated to Australia in 1974, is a
passionate advocate for art’s role to debate issues of social and
political significance. Davila’s complex, beautiful and challenging
paintings are known for their thorough interrogation of cultural,
sexual and social identities, within an international context.

Incorporating text, found objects, appropriated imagery, photography
and other media Davila’s paintings represent insightful critiques of
themes including the Australian political system, the cultural aspects
of late capitalism, the structures of the art world and sexuality.

More recently, Davila addressed the treatment of refugees in Australian
detention centres in a series of nightmarish ‘Woomera’ landscapes
referencing the suffering of detainees.

Internationally recognised for his innovation in painting, Davila is
represented in every major public collection in Australia, as well as
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museo Extremeño e
Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo in Spain. He has exhibited widely
throughout Australia, South and North America and Europe and was
included in the 1982 and 1984 Biennale of Sydney.

A substantial monograph devoted to the artist, co-published by
Melbourne University Publishing, will be released to accompany the
exhibition, including full colour plates of over 150 works. The
beautifully produced book features a powerful selection of paintings,
installations and works on paper from the early 1970s to the present,
as well as a selection of the artist’s incisive essays and written
commentary on key works. Newly commissioned texts by British curator
and critic Guy Brett and Australian art historian and curator Roger
Benjamin examine the contexts and development of Davila’s work,
indicating the scope and sources of his art in Latin American popular
culture, Australian visual culture, the history of art and political
history.