Glorious, yet grotesque.

Victoria (the Famine Queen), who ruled carelessly over a starving Ireland (1845-1852, est. 1 million deaths) and drowned an exhausted China in opium, stands majestically before her floral (S. tuberosum) birthday fan (gift of Prince Albert, 1858). Ubiquitous in marble, these imposing statues dot the commonwealth of countries to remind us of our place… and yet empires can bleed and curiously, can be neutered by the mere splash of paint.

All our lives we have lived subject to the monarchy, and the art that has spilled from them has informed my own. Its power to deceive and intoxicate, is a masterclass in institutional control. The gold, the jewellery, the crowns, silk, and ceremony, all seek to cheat us of the truth that we remain under subjection.

During the recent coronation of King Charles (May 2023), the Queen Victoria Statue (1907, Q. Victoria Gardens, Victoria) was vandalised. This arguably juvenile act of throwing paint had inexplicably turned this symbol of wealth, power, and prominence on its head.

-Robert Hague (2023)

Robert Hague’s lithographic prints bring together the feel and grandeur of antiquity with an often-biting commentary on the modern world. By embracing classical techniques, he manages to make the bitter into the sweet and shows us that contemporary art can be timeless. His fan series employs the metaphor of the decorative folding-fan, a decorative object that speaks of the politics and culture of the collector, decoration as meaning, pattern as ownership and our desire for a cultural belonging.

All the fans depicted are broken and of this Hague says that “within the deceit of pattern and decoration, there lays a darker, broken truth.”

From his studio in Melbourne, Hague prints his own work directly from limestone slabs, on a 1940’s Charles Brand lithography press. He has exhibited widely and is represented in major public collections such as the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2019 his work was the subject of a retrospective at the Casula Powerhouse (Sydney). Recent exhibitions include ‘Melbourne Now 2023’, NGV Australia, ‘New Prints’ at IPC New York, ‘Common Ground’ at NGV International, ‘The Megalo International Print Prize’ (Canberra), ‘Porcelaine’ at Turner Galleries (Perth), the Blake Prize (awarded the Blake Residency), 'CRUSH' at Fehily Contemporary, the ‘Wynne Prize’ at AGNSW and 'Inaugural' at Nicholas Projects.

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