MELBOURNE.- For the past twenty years, Melbourne based, New Zealand-born artist Ronnie van Hout’s distinctive tragicomic characters have simultaneously unsettled and beguiled audiences.

Aliens, failed robots, fragile, lonely figures in the midst of perplexing scenarios, van Hout masterfully evokes familiar and yet strange interior worlds, unleashing deep social anxieties, feelings of self-consciousness, and the impulse to both laugh and cry.

The first survey exhibition featuring an artist from the Michael Buxton Collection at the new Buxton Contemporary, the ironically titled No one is watching you brings together over twenty works from this significant contemporary artists’ singular practice. Featuring loans from public institutions and private collections across Australia and New Zealand, the exhibition includes key works such as Ersatz (Alien) 2003, BED/SIT 2008, and Sick child 2 2016, as well as two new major projects, alongside works in sculpture, video, embroidery and text.

Ronnie van Hout is best known for his distinctive brand of existential absurdism. His tragicomic oeuvre references a wide range of sources, from science fiction, cults and cinema to art history and popular and celebrity culture. He frequently draws upon childhood experiences and recollections to create wryly amusing yet heart-rending micro fictions.

Curator Melissa Keys says, “The multitude of protagonists populating van Hout’s work includes figures from pop culture, peculiar everymen and wicked self-portraits. The latter appear to theatrically seize the artistic limelight while at the same time attempting to elude its searching glare. Van Hout’s practice deliberately blurs the boundaries between self and other, artist and audience, tragedy and farce, at once humorously and poignantly exploring powerful sensations of the contemporary human condition.”

Ronnie van Hout, born in 1962 in Christchurch, New Zealand, holds a Masters of Fine Arts from RMIT, Melbourne (1999) and attended the School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University, majoring in film (1982).

Van Hout has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally and his solo exhibitions include Art Basel Hong Kong, Darren Knight Gallery booth 1C43, 2017; You!, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Station Gallery, Melbourne, 2016; The Dark Pool, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2015; To Love and be Loved in Return, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2016; The Way Home, I.C.A.N., Sydney, 2014; The Leavings, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2012; Brood, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2010; Uncured, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2010; Who Goes There, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu, New Zealand, 2009; Fallenness, Ocular Lab Inc., Melbourne, 2009; Hold that thought, Hamish MckKay Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008; RUR, Melbourne Art Fair, 2008.

His most recent group exhibitions include Good Manners, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2018; The Watched, Murray Art Museum (MAMA), Albury, New South Wales, 2018; Hyper Real, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2017; Darren Knight Gallery at Spring 1883, Room 55, The Establishment Hotel, Sydney, 2017; The National: New Australian Art 2017, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Double A-side, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2017; Design & Play, Design Hub, RMIT, Melbourne, 2016 and Is This Thing On?, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne, 2016.