Layered, symbolic and hypnotic, Hal Witney’s work attempts to offer a postmodern mash of pain and pleasure, identity, desire, and transcendent spirituality in a frenetic world of often-contradictory selves. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking he seeks to reflect, process and overcome the influx of hyper-sexualised imagery in today’s visual material-based culture.
Synthesizing a range of ideas, fantasies, discomforts and desires, Hal creates brightly coloured, energetic works that reveal a very human struggle with identity and search for meaning. Urgently drawn forlorn figures exist in a world that mirrors the inner turmoil, chaos and contradictory nature of the modern mind. Full of life-force, his pulsating works are the result of a quest to gain spiritual understanding and self-knowledge.
A recent graduate of UNSWAD (formerly COFA), with honours, Hal has exhibited at artist run spaces including recently at Tributary Projects in Canberra and the Sydney Art Collective. He is a finalist in the Blacktown City Art Prize 2022/2023 and his works are held in a number of private collections both nationally and internationally.
Image: Head out, within without. 2022. acrylic, oil pastel, oil stick and charcoal on linen, 123 x 93 cm
