Picturing Paul

In the article ‘Richard Lewer: You Wouldn’t Make This Stuff Up’, issue 9 of Vault magazine 2015, Rebecca Gallo describes how New Zealand-born Lewer uses art to ‘delve deep into a world of idiosyncratic characters, marginal settings and unlikely life-stuffs’.

Now Melbourne-based, Lewer works across media – painting, drawing, video, sculpture – creating figurative and text-based works that have a clear, distinctive, and personal narrative voice. He is best-known for art that explores sport (he won the Basil Sellers Prize in 2016), ethical issues (he won the Blake Prize in 2014 with his video work about euthanasia ‘Worse luck I am Still Here’), religion, his family, and crime. The National Gallery of Victoria has four of Lewer’s works in the collection including the video work ‘The sound of your own breathing’.

I first met Richard when he was part of the Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Program between 2008-2010 and was intrigued with how seemingly simply he could ‘nail’ the essence of a communication or a personality. The text-based works on foam rubber (below) resonated with the annihilating comments that young people were dealing with in my mental health work. It is not surprising that he has worked with Arts Project Australia and has mentored one of their artists.

A few weeks ago, I was asked by Gertrude Contemporary to write about an artwork that I would like to see after the current lockdown ends as part of their ‘Odes to the Absent’ response to the coronavirus pandemic. I have slightly revised the piece I wrote to include it in today’s blog today, to acknowledge what would have been my brother’s 68^th birthday – 2nd September.

Paul

My family had a saying: ‘cockroaches and Paul would survive a nuclear holocaust’. My older brother, Paul, should have died at birth and many times thereafter. The odds were clearly stacked against him. Born with a rare chromosomal abnormality and a hole in his heart, he developed encephalitis when only a few days old. It was amazing he made it to week one.

 At his healthiest, he stood under 5 feet tall, weighed 30 kilograms and was autistic and intellectually challenged.  But what he lacked in physical and cognitive robustness, he made up for with the life force.

Paul lived with my parents all his life and their care ensured his longevity. They indulged his whims – his refusal to wear any colour other than green, his restricted diet which included coca cola drunk through a green straw (as his only fluid), his fondness for the Magic AM radio station, his ever increasing collection of panda bears, and his repetitive making of big jigsaw puzzles. Occasionally Paul would develop a ‘passion’ for something. For a few years he insisted on being called ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and cast my father as Dr Watson, my mother as Mrs Hudson (the housekeeper), and me as either Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, or arch enemy, Moriarty, depending on whether or not I was in favour.

When my parents died, we worried about his ability to cope. But Paul thrived as my sister, Jenny, and I (with an entourage of female carers) maintained his lifestyle and routines. This was not always an easy job and Paul would often become frustrated with us. It was not unusual to hear him mutter: ‘Michael …. firing squad’ or ‘Jenny …. electric chair’ if he felt we were not up to the task.

We invited Richard Lewer to paint Paul’s portrait. Paul had a number of idiosyncratic utterances which we thought Richard might capture; but Richard had other ideas and decided to paint the biggest portrait of the smallest adult person he had ever met. Richard sat and bonded with Paul, and Paul thought Richard would be a suitable carer.

The painting captures the essence of Paul – his open interested expression, his wayward left eye, his arched eyebrows, the odd angle of his mouth, his hunched back and clasped hands, the perilously poised glasses with mended frame, and his watch stretched over his green jumper. The brown, rather than green pants, means a toilet mishap had occurred. Paul is reluctantly looking at the picture and has no emotional connection to it. I can hear him saying: ‘I want to get back to my jigsaw puzzle’.

Paul died six months after the picture was finished. During the last weeks of his life he was obsessed with the Beatles song ‘When I’m 64’. His heart finally gave out shortly after his 64^th birthday, at home, while we held his hands.

The painting of Paul now hangs in Jenny’s house and greets visitors as they enter. With COVID-19, I have not been able to visit Paul for quite some time. If the current lockdown ends according to plan, I will get to see him again, soon after what would have been his 68^th birthday. As our eyes lock, I can hear him shouting to my sister: ‘What’s happening?’ And we will reassure him again, that there is nothing for him to worry about…

Postscript

Richard came to see us shortly after Paul died and gave us the first of the ceramic crucifixes which he had made. Paul was a committed Christian – although he would often say: ‘I am not ready to see Jesus yet’ – (and given Paul’ longevity, Jesus was in no hurry to meet him!). It was the perfect acknowledgement of the passing of a unique and lovable individual.