Life after Punk

An essay by Jenny Watson on Rea Burton’s Punk Paintings. Commissioned by Robert Heald Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition.

Rea Burton, Punk Paintings. Installation view, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, July 2022

I have just returned from London where I accidentally witnessed the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations first-hand, an elderly monarch fulfilling her designated role. Jude Crighton, a friend who played a pivotal role at Rough Trade during punk, after informed me that the Sex Pistols song God Save the Queen may well become a number one hit as a consequence. Rea Burton’s decrepit found portrait of the newly-crowned Queen, crinkled and covered in bird droppings—presented in this body of work—sets the scene and brings to mind the rebellious atmosphere of the punk anthem. The notoriety that followed punk was emblematic of a seismic shift in culture that affected many attitudes and appearances that resonated in the colonies.

Rea Burton, Anaemic Young Girl in the Snow (detail), 2022, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

In 1978 when London punk was in full swing, I made the decision not to seek a permanent teaching position in Melbourne, choosing instead to concentrate on art. In London I rented a bedsit in Paddington and went to see every band that counted at venues such as Dingwalls, The Rock Garden, Vortex and the Roundhouse on Sunday afternoons. The ICA was my favourite art institution with a great café, and of course there was the fashion. I have always regretted not buying a tunic designed by Vivienne Westwood from her boutique SEX. It had all her early signifiers—a mohair sleeve, some fishnet, an embroidered Karl Marx pocket, diamanté, ribbons and leather straps. It was twelve pounds and at the time seemed expensive. I feel very fortunate to have had these experiences. Punk is a well-documented moment in history, something older generations remember. In Anaemic Young Girl in the Snow Rea depicts a punk outfit ready to be worn, graffitied with skeins of white paint that bring to mind the drip technique of Jackson Pollock.

Rea depicts this time, her subjects and herself, at a remove augmented by other subcultural personalities and signifiers that preceded and followed, including the self-portrait Poser based on the confident photograph that featured in i-D magazine six years ago confirming her status as a young art star, with one significant addition, a tear drop added under the right eye. Her compositions give the identities she portrays a curious nostalgic air, not quite like the atmosphere evoked by ancient sepia photographs. In the painting Little England, Siouxsie Sioux, Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten are brought into close proximity and the portrait of an unhappy John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) slumped with his suitcase on wheels is a kind of sad end point as weary as any other middle aged traveller in transit.

In New York in 1975 on my first visit overseas a new friend put Patti Smith’s album Horses into my hands. I first encountered Nick Cave in 1977 as I began my first tertiary teaching job in Melbourne. He was dropping out of art school after eighteen months of study, realising he would not be a painter. He invited me to the first paid performance of his band, The Boys Next Door at the Tiger Lounge in the Royal Oak Hotel in Richmond. This introduced me to an exciting young evolving music scene. I had been a bob-haired high school teacher catching the train to the suburbs and found this context refreshing. At the time there was a simmering reaction against the prevailing nineteen-fifties idea of security that required the trifecta of having a full-time job, getting engaged and buying a house. Punk in Melbourne was an affectation as a reaction to this security blanket. As Anita Lane put it “we weren’t poor, angry or unhappy.” Rea’s paintings that in part make reference to a time I directly experienced will provoke a new understanding that moves beyond nostalgic reminiscence, episodic enigmatic talking points.

Rea Burton, Little England, 2022, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm

Rea Burton, Anaemic Young Girl in the Snow, 2022, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

Rea Burton, Sad Punk, 2022, oil on canvas, 140 x 105 cm

Rea Burton, Sad Punk, 2022, oil on canvas, 140 x 105 cm

Rea Burton, Sad Punk (detail), 2022, oil on canvas, 140 x 105 cm

Rea Burton, Queen II, 2022, bird excrement on found image, 29 x 21 cm 

Rea Burton, Highland Rape, 2022, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm 

Rea Burton, Poser, 2022, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm 

Rea Burton, Queen II, 2022, oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm 

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