Comparing The Highway Is A Disco By Euan Macleod And Del Kathryn Barton

Euan MacLeod and Del Kathryn Barton are Australian artists that operate with different materials at different periods of times, who produce exceptional works that relate significantly to the concept of identity with a focus on the human condition. The works of Del Kathryn Barton reflect femininity and motherhood; however, Macleod’s reflect morbid emotions and an abstract approach to portray an altered style of melancholy.

Barton’s ‘The Highway is a Disco’ was flawlessly painted in the modern era of 2014, made with synthetic polymer paint and fibre tipped pens on canvas, measuring at 240 x 180 cm. Similarly, another body of work painted exquisitely, ‘Of Pollen’ was designed with synthetic polymer paint in the contemporary era. It measures 163
Barton's pictures are so stylised that anyone who sits for a portrait be prepared to be transformed into an iridescent, bug-eyed line drawing embraced by exotic animals, cast adrift on a sea of dots. In other words, don't expect psychological realism. Throughout Barton’s artworks, her ever-present theme is motherhood, which appears in the most surprising incarnations. She treats the business of sex, procreation and nurturing as if it were straight out of a dramatic television show. The everyday occurrences of a woman's life are transmuted into a heroic quest, with mothers and daughters turned into characters from science fiction, like her painting “You are what is most beautiful about me, a self-portrait with Kell and Arella”. In her work, ‘Highway is a Disco’, the central figure looks like a maternal warrior with five breasts instead of two. With her legs covered in scales or feathers, she seems to be merging with the natural world. A snake and a kangaroo are shown clinging to her limbs. Barton’s artworks can have different cultural aspects, such as the snake clinging onto her limb can symbolise, in some cultures as ‘snake goddess’ primitive symbol of male genitals. Another common cultural aspect is the multiple breasts that go as back as 200 BC artworks, such as the Greek
His dark, expressive paintings are heavily textured. He has been the recipient of some of Australia’s greatest art prizes as well such as the Archibald Prize in 1999, and six other awards (Chromanonline, 2010). He has been described as both an expressionist and a symbolist and his dense, textured and sculptural use of paint has become a consistent feature of his work (Mitchell Fine Art, 2011). Macleod is not limited when it comes to the landscapes he paints, feeling equally at home in the picturesque New Zealand countryside and the harsh and flat Australian outback and often painting a hybrid of both landscapes. His expressive style lends itself to simple yet potent compositions, his muted palette imbuing the works with rich symbolism and atmosphere. His use of colour has expanded in the last decade, with many works depicting the ochres and crimsons of the Australian desert. Macleod’s work, ‘Self Portrait/ Head like a Hole’ is constructed with oil paints and a wide variety of individual meaning. The figure to the right in the painting is painted with great texture and detail. This work doesn’t have exact meaning but the viewer can create its own. His works are very individuality to him as they symbolise his thoughts and not being directly narrative and sparse in meaning. His work strongly features texture and reduction of form. There are strong emotions from the figure with engagement of the eyes. His works are constructed by