Kendal HEYES
From a Shipwreck 1-9 1985
A series of cibachrome prints
630 x 870 mm each
Edmiston Trust Collection, New Zealand Maritime Museum.
From a Shipwreck 1-9 featured in the first Auckland Triennial, Bright Paradise - Exotic History and Sublime Artifice, at the Auckland Art Gallery in 2001.
Curator Allan Smith has described them as, … pseudo film-stills relying on simple props and back-projection of imagery which sets the stage for an actor to appear as if immersed in the scene. From a Shipwreck constructs a fragmented and theatrical narrative of the 19th century maritime romantic sublime …
Kendal Heyes says his series … generally follows the ‘narrative’ of the poem … Mallarme‘s Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance) …
Mallarmé (1842 –1898) was a French Symbolist poet and critic. His work anticipated and inspired the Cubists, Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists. Published 1897 A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish challenged the standard linear format of poetry and allowed for the words to be continuously reinterpreted.
Heyes was also influenced by the following quotes:
Like one who keeps afloat on a shipwreck by climbing to the top of a mast that is already crumbling. But from there he has a chance to give a signal leading to his rescue - Walter Benjamin, (1892-1940).
Drifting occurs whenever I do not respect the whole and whenever, by dint of seeming driven about by language’s illusions, seductions, and intimidations, like a cork on the waves, I remain motionless, pivoting on the intractable bliss that binds me to the text (to the world) - Roland Barthes, (1915 – 1980).
Kendal HEYES b. 1952
Born in Auckland, New Zealand Kendal Heyes now lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
He studied Art History and English at the University of Auckland from 1976-1978, and painting, sculpture and film studies at Elam School of Fine Arts from 1977-78.
In 1980 he commenced studies at the Sydney Collage of the Arts, receiving a BA Visual Arts, 1982 and a Graduate Diploma (Photography), 1983. He was the recipient of a Visual Arts Board project grant in 1986 and in 1987 awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, Otago University, Dunedin.
Between 1990-92 he completed a Master of Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing), University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts and returned 2007-11 to complete a PhD (Practice-based Research, Drawing).
He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions since 1981. More recently his practice has included printmaking and painting.
In 2010 Heyes won the Tim Olsen Drawing Prize and in 2017 the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing.
His work is represented in public and private collections locally and internationally.
