Tim Vagg John West is Dead

Opening 6-9pm Thursday March 18
Exhibition runs March 18 – April 3 2010

John West is Dead is a new exhibition of paintings by Tim Vagg to mark the opening of Kick Gallery in Collingwood. As with Vagg’s 2009 exhibition, Heroes, Drunks and Bounders – Forgotten Tales of Melbourne, Vagg delves deeply into the history of Melbourne as he re-exams and re-animates famous and infamous figures of this city’s past through portraiture. In John West is Dead Vagg focuses on the controversial Collingwood tycoon John Wren and one of Australia's most famous literary libel cases that arose from the publication of Frank Hardy's ‘Power without Glory’.

Through a combination of broad research and artistic invention, Tim Vagg offers us a chance to ponder the mythologies of our own history, our fascination with criminal notoriety and the notions of class politics at the turn of the 20th century that was documented in Hardy’s thinly-veiled fictional novel about Wren. The exhibition is not intended as a biographical portrait, but more a study of history through the prism of historical, political and cultural myth.

John West is Dead is Tim Vagg’s seventh solo show with Kick Gallery since first exhibiting at Kick Gallery Northcote’s inaugural exhibition Inner Sense in 2002. These solo exhibitions include; Face-Up (2003); Dogmatika (2004), Northcote Stories (2005); The Theatre of You & Me (2007); Batmania: Tales from a cold Melbourne Studio (2008); and Heroes, Drunk and Bounders – Forgotten Tales of Melbourne (2009).

John West is Dead runs until April 3 2010.

John West is Dead is exhibition is the inaugural exhibition for Kick Gallery at our new premises located at 4 Peel Street Collingwood.