Ronnie van Hout: No one is watching you

Curated by Melissa Keys

This ironically titled exhibition shines a spotlight on Ronnie van Hout, a Melbourne-based New Zealand-born artist best known for his distinctive brand of existential absurdism. Bringing together works that span more than 30 years of practice, No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout encompasses sculpture, video, photography, embroidery and text, and features major new installations.

Van Hout’s tragicomic oeuvre references a wide range of sources, from science fiction, cults and cinema to art history and popular and celebrity culture. He frequently draws upon childhood experiences and recollections to create wryly amusing yet heart-rending micro fictions. Casting fragile, lonely figures in the midst of perplexing scenarios, van Hout masterfully evokes familiar and yet strange interior worlds. His unsettling tableaux unleash deep social anxieties and feelings of self-consciousness, triggering the impulse to simultaneously laugh and cry. 

The multitude of protagonists populating van Hout’s work includes figures from pop culture, peculiar everymen and wicked self-portraits. The latter appear to theatrically seize the artistic limelight while at the same time attempting to elude its searching glare. Van Hout’s practice deliberately blurs the boundaries between self and other, artist and audience, tragedy and farce, at once humorously and poignantly exploring powerful sensations of the contemporary human condition.

About Ronnie van Hout
Ronnie van Hout, born in 1962 in Christchurch, New Zealand, holds a Masters of Fine Arts from RMIT, Melbourne (1999) and attended the School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University, majoring in film (1982). 

Van Hout has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally and his solo exhibitions include Art Basel Hong Kong, Darren Knight Gallery booth 1C43, 2017; You!, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Station Gallery, Melbourne, 2016; The Dark Pool, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2015; To Love and be Loved in Return, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2016; The Way Home, I.C.A.N., Sydney, 2014; The Leavings, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2012; Brood, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2010; Uncured, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2010; Who Goes There, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu, New Zealand, 2009; Fallenness, Ocular Lab Inc., Melbourne, 2009; Hold that thought, Hamish MckKay Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008; RUR, Melbourne Art Fair, 2008.

His most recent group exhibitions include Good Manners, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2018; The Watched, Murray Art Museum (MAMA), Albury, New South Wales, 2018; Hyper Real, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2017; Darren Knight Gallery at Spring 1883, Room 55, The Establishment Hotel, Sydney, 2017; The National: New Australian Art 2017, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Double A-side, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2017; Design & Play, Design Hub, RMIT, Melbourne, 2016 and Is This Thing On?, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne, 2016;

About Buxton Contemporary
Located within Melbourne’s Southbank arts precinct and embedded at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Buxton Contemporary provides a home and broad cultural context for the extraordinary art collection of Melbourne property developer and passionate art collector Michael Buxton.

Over 2,200 square metres in size, Buxton Contemporary has been designed by Melbourne based, internationally recognized architects Fender Katsalidis. A major feature is the museum entrance, which is flanked by one of the largest digital screens in Australia, showcasing a constantly changing collection of digital and video works from the Michael Buxton Collection.

Buxton Contemporary is just a few short steps from the Melbourne Recital Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, ABC Melbourne, the Melbourne Theatre Company and The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.