GAB 74 (Grishin’s Art Blog number 74)

Asher Bilu at Charles Nodrum Gallery

Asher Bilu, Musicality in the sphere of thought (Einstein), 2021, cello, ultramarine pigment, 24 crt gold leaf and mixed media, dimensions variable, photo: Charles Nodrum Gallery

In the world of art – Asher Bilu is one of our tribal elders. He will turn 88 later this year and has been seriously and professionally making and exhibiting art for over six decades.
 
Back in the 1960s, Bilu’s star was in ascendency. The top art critics in Melbourne and Sydney had exhausted the thesaurus looking up words for ‘artistic genius’; leading commercial art galleries in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and London queued up to show his work; he scooped the major art prizes, including the Blake Prize for Religious art in 1965, and he made a living from his art and supported his family.
 

Asher Bilu, Finite Chips (Blue), 1988-2024, PVA resin, paper offcuts and & pigment on board, 183 x 244 x 40cm, photo: Charles Nodrum Gallery

 
Bilu in his art was always marching to a different drummer and has been relatively immune to the fashions of the art world. He was an artist who constantly felt the need to reinvent himself. He tells the story of once hearing an interview with great Irish poet and playwright, Seamus Heaney, who recalled that he wrote his finest poem when he was seventeen, and it was all downhill since then.
 
Bilu has an obsession of always being true to himself and over the decades his art has evolved and has taken many turns in different directions. While mindful that he has made some outstanding pieces in the past that have stood the test of time, he is confident that some of his finest pieces with the power to enthral, amaze and spiritually inspire people, lie ahead of him.
 
Bilu has never embraced figuration – for him there was little challenge to try to repeat what nature had already created – the challenge is to create something that does not exist in nature, but to do it in such a way, the viewer is convinced that they are experiencing a new sort of nature. Paul Klee once noted in a diary entry in 1915, “The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art”. I suspect that Bilu would agree.
 

Asher Bilu, Blue Eclipse, 2019, resin, pigments & felt on board, 183 x 183cm, photo: Charles Nodrum Gallery

The exhibition of Bilu’s new work at the Charles Nodrum Gallery, Blue Bilu, is striking and breathtaking. Blue in many cultures is a celestial colour, as Wassily Kandinsky famously wrote, “The inclination of blue to deepen is so strong that its inner appeal is stronger when its shade is deeper. The deeper the blue the more it beckons man into the infinite, arousing a longing for purity and the supersensuous.” Most of the eleven pieces in this exhibition are of the deepest blue and beckon the viewer to engage with the infinite.
 
A centrepiece in this exhibition is an installation that carries the somewhat cumbersome title Musicality in the sphere of thought (Einstein), 2021. It consists of a cello painted ultramarine blue and balancing on a mound of sixty kilos of raw ultramarine pigment that in turn is resting on a platform black Perspex on timber and all of this is displayed against a background wall gilded with 24 carat gold leaf. It is a mesmerising ethereal vision of a floating cello suspended in space. Bilu is a musician, as well as a visual artist, and, like Einstein, he played the violin from an early age.
 

Asher Bilu, Beyond, 2022-2024, acrylic on canvas, 165.5 x 106cm, photo: Charles Nodrum Gallery

Much of Bilu’s art could be thought of as improvisation – the moving around of thoughts, dreams and visions – with the final work a moment in time when the process of improvisation has stopped and a moment of visual ecstasy attained. Igor Stravinsky once famously observed, “Composition is frozen improvisation”.
 
The eleven pieces in this exhibition could be described as a series of improvisations on the theme of blue as resolved over the past five years. There are installations, paintings and woven pieces – all on a considerable scale and each involving an individual meditation on the theme of blue. In some ways it is difficult to verbalise the work, one can use privileged information from the artist and describe the anecdotal circumstances that lay behind the creation of each piece. Like gossip, this approach is amusing, but does little to elucidate the work. Alternatively, one can wax lyrical and relate what you felt on seeing the pieces, but I suspect that each viewer will bring their own background to the experience of the work.

Asher Bilu, Circle (blue), 2021, acrylic, pigment & string on stainless steel, 114cm diameter, photo: Charles Nodrum Gallery

The exhibition is a series of personal encounters with a number of works of very high order that are guaranteed to challenge the senses and to leave a long-lasting impression. Even when the music fades, you can still hear it in your mind’s eye.
 
In Australia, we have a poor record in honouring our tribal elders with so many people craning their necks to catch the next big thing, that a pain in the neck is a frequent malady in our art scene. This exhibition calls on us to stop, look, and be amazed and inspired.
 

Asher Bilu, Blue Bilu installation, Charles Nodrum Gallery, photo: S Grishin

Asher Bilu: Blue Bilu,
Charles Nodrum Gallery, 267 Church Street, Richmond
May 25-June 15, 2024, Tues - Sat 11am-5pm
 
There will be a major exhibition of Asher Bilu’s works between 1954 and 1979 shown at the Bayside Gallery, Corner Wilson and Carpenter Sts, Brighton VIC, August 31 – October 20, 2024