In Your Face comprises works on paper dating from 1980-90. The selection is primarily drawn from Mask Series, first shown at Holdsworth Galleries in 1981 and Untitled Head Studies, first shown in his solo exhibition ‘Portraits of an Age of Mechanical Parody’, at Tolarno Galleries in 1986.

The human head – and what goes on inside it – is a central motif in McIntyre’s work. An intimate body of works examining his fascination with the human head is the core focus of this exhibition. ‘I believe it is the most fascinating subject of all for an artist, because I view the human head as a type of container for everything that we comprehend about life,’ said McIntyre in 1993.

Most known for employing a collage technique of juxtaposing and layering diverse and at times difficult images and mediums, McIntyre’s practice reveals his dedication, fascination and sensitivity for the human body and the paradoxes of the human condition. His ‘head studies’ can be viewed as self-portraits evoking emotional states of struggle relevant to us all. Tonally monochromatic and sometimes witty in their abstracted execution, McIntyre’s mark-making always pulses with energy, drawing out intense affective states of human experience.

Born 1945 in Katoomba, NSW, McIntyre received a scholarship to the National Art School where he studied under John Coburn, Rodney Milgate and David Strachan, who was particularly influential. In 1975 he undertook a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris where he mixed with Carl Plate and Stanislaus Rapotec, but it was the modernist art movements of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art that proved to be a major influence on his art making and stylistic characteristics.

McIntyre had a great passion for teaching and writing. From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s he regularly contributed art criticism to publications such as The Australian, The Age and Art & Australia. This exhibition at Eva Breuer Art Dealer coincides with the June 2011 issue of Art & Australia, which features an essay by Daniel Mudie Cunningham assessing McIntyre’s experiences abroad during his residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts.

McIntyre is widely represented in Australian public gallery collections including: Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Kedumba Collection, along with many university, regional gallery and corporate collections in Australia.

Organised in association with the Arthur McIntyre Estate.