Artist Statement
Glenn Morgan and Barry Tate attended Warrnambool North Technical School. They didn’t study together - Glenn was doing art there and suggested to Barry, who is a year younger, that he should do art as it’s a bludge! Both did two years there and went on to complete a Diploma of Fine Art at the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education. Over many a table tennis battle, Glenn majored in print making and minored in sculpture, Barry majored in ceramics and minored in printmaking. Glenn went on to do a post graduate at the Victorian College of Art and Barry did a post graduate at the Royal Melbourne Institute. So their artistic lives intertwined from an early age.
Their first exhibition was at the Warrnambool Art Gallery where they were asked to leave for being over excited, this was 1980. They have exhibited together many times and the upcoming show will be their third at WAG. Barry moved to Queensland in the late eighties and established two art schools for TAFE, the Brisbane Institute and Sunshine Coast Institute, he moved back to country Victoria to care for his father. Glenn and Barry had two more shows together at Charles Nodrums Gallery in Melbourne. Their work tends to bounce off each other with strong technical and conceptual application.
Glenn has been described as an artist who can frighten a laugh out of you with hard hitting social commentary. Barry's work has a religious element but has been described as more casino than cathedral. An overall description of the pairs work could be no fear and more about trying to take the viewer somewhere rather than making wall candy.
Although their work is quite different they have been collaborating on some ceramic pieces of which 12 are in the show. These works are vibrant fun pots that are wildly made and decorated. Glenn recently held an exhibition at the Warrnambool Art Gallery where his work was well received and broke all attendance records. Barry has been a four times Blake Prize finalist, with his revamped 2013 painting “Garden of Eden” exhibited in this show.
