A Case of Deja Vu

A Case of Déjà Vu: Seven Paintings and a Suitcase that Relive Art History in the Everyday was a selection of works by Western Australian artist Thomas Hoareau that spanned three decades. They were specifically chosen to illustrate the artist’s interest in the concept of homage and the way he has returned to this theme at various points throughout his career. The exhibition contained seven paintings, a painting inside a suitcase, two painted grey-scale tonal studies, a reproduction of an early painting and several displays of reference photographs used by the artist in the development of his compositions.

A Case of Déjà Vu: Seven Paintings and a Suitcase comprised a series of works, dating from the early nineties, that were contemporary re-workings of iconic paintings from the history of Western Art, representing the artist’s continued interest in this theme over three decades of his career. The Girl at the Counter of Leabridge Newsagent (1997) was a street-level reworking of Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere and Northbridge Gothic (1998) presented Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930) reworked within a contemporary social milieu.

The exhibition also included large-scale contemporary reworkings of paintings such as Theodore Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1819) and Gustave Courbet’s The Stonebreakers (1850-51). The artist’s approach to making reference to past artworks is somewhat unique, in that, rather than directly copying, he relives the artworks within everyday experience via performance photography, direct observation and the actual experience of connecting art history within a staged event.