Essay by; Melissa Loughnan
SUNFLOWERS (after Van Gogh) is the first body of work produced by Justin Hinder since his diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It presents a reimagining of Van Gogh’s key works from the 1888-89 period, through the lens of Hinder’s recent personal experiences. After hearing the story of Van Gogh cutting off his ear in an art class as a child, Justin obsessively painted his sunflowers. Ironically, as an adult, he suffered the same destiny by the hand of cancer.
Hinder’s previous series have often indirectly portrayed the artist via another character through semi-autobiographical narrative. His artistic journey has dealt with the histories of Australian art and popular culture (explored through the story of Picnic at Hanging Rock in Heaven-sent crumbs, 2014); the rites and passages of life (depictions of death, funerarias and apparitions in grande finale, 2016); and his rejection by the church and by his family of his sexuality (via a female protagonist in Holy Ghost, 2017).
In SUNFLOWERS (after Van Gogh) we are brought out of fiction and into the present, to a direct and personal memoir of Hinder’s cancer journey. Through portraiture, still lives and interiors, Hinder investigates his own resilience, and the human condition more broadly. The series starts with Prologue, a self-portrait of the artist after learning that cancer has spread across his forehead and behind his ears, and that he will require extensive surgery and radiation treatment. Depicted before surgery, the artist is documented in the ‘before’ stage, perhaps pensively, behind a hat and sunglasses.
In the style of Van Gogh’s Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Hinder’s First Surgery depicts the artist, beard shaven, with bandages across his forehead and left ear. The absence of facial details suggests the artist is holding back the emotional side of this process: this is merely documentation. In Third Surgery, Hinder is in a white hospital gown, looking at his reflection in the mirror beside a nurse, following the complete loss of his left ear. Radiation portrays Hinder without bandages, his lost ear healed over, in a hospital gown, prior to radiation therapy. His beard has returned, however his facial details remain absent.
Hinder’s Bedroom series depicts the places where the artist rested and recovered from surgery and radiation. Adopting a similar viewpoint to Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles; four bedrooms and two hospital rooms are portrayed, speaking to Hinder’s journey through housing after separating from his long term partner at the time of his diagnosis. The expressive interiors convey the ability of a domestic environment to allow healing and recuperation.
Epilogue renders Hinder in a bucket hat, concealing his lost ear, back to his inimitable self, but forever changed. Like the rest of the portraits in this series, no eyes, mouth or nose are pictured.
The series culminates in Hinder’s still life ...and in its depth it has its pearls, an optimistic work charged with colour, life and vibrancy after Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A central painting of sunflowers is embroidered with the initials JH in the appearance of a string of pearls. The work speaks to Van Gogh’s famous quote ' ‘The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls’’. Hinder has braved the rough seas, the high and low tides, and is now appreciating the pearls offered by a second chance at life - a new beginning. This work, and entire body of work, is one of regeneration.
Melissa Loughnan is the founding director of Utopian Slumps and author of Australiana to Zeitgeist: An A to Z of Australian Contemporary Art, published by Thames & Hudson, 2017.
And in its depths it has its pearls, 2022
acrylic on stretched canvas with pearled beads, framed
60x90cm
$6,000