Forthcoming Exhibition - 28th June - the press release

Former recipient of the now-defunct Itchiball Prize for Bad Art Ben Butcher once again puts two-dollar-shop paintbrush to hard-rubbish-scavenged canvas in his typically enthusiastic style capturing mundane and glorious moments, weird dreams, and re-imagined barroom anecdotes.

A retired Black Caviar earns some petty cash by acting as a jousting horse at a medieval fair while Ned Kelly sells balloons to kids.

Vladimir Putin joins Ivan The Terrible in throwing dogs and a spare dolphin from the Kremlin tower at Pussy Riot.

Julian Assange and his schoolyard friend Paul Cregan using tractor tyres as an army tank and a stick as a cannon.

Oh, and of course there are unicorns and rainbows.

After selling out his 2013 exhibition at the Old Bar gallery, Butcher has returned with a new collection of works fusing his trademark colour palette and unique perspective in a painstakingly-rendered display of exuberant jouissance. Butcher is a Melbourne musician, photographer, and teacher whose work has been described as 'like Sidney Nolan on acid' and addresses questions like 'what does God do in his spare time?' and “how come Tolstoy spent his whole life looking for the secret of universal happiness while David Walsh managed to find it quite quickly?”

Ben Butcher’s Art Show can be viewed at the upstairs gallery at The Old Bar (74-76 Johnston Street, Fitzroy) for a strictly limited time.

Opens : 6pm, Tuesday 28^th June

Final Day: Saturday 2^nd July

All enquiries, contact Ben

e. long.exposure@gmail.com

p. 0408 762461

w. http://australiasworstartist.blogspot.com.au/

Coach Savage And Her Unicorns - painting sale this week!!

This new painting will be sold this week, to raise money for the mighty Old Bar Unicorns football team's 2015 campaign. 

A prominent Melbourne critic has recently written...

"Local artist, Ben Butcher, has (rather unfairly) been afforded the misleading moniker,  "Australia's Worst Artist". This title does little justice to the scope and aesthetic ambition exemplified in Butcher's latest work, "Coach Savage And Her Unicorns". 

Butcher thrusts a blended indoor/outdoor scenario at the viewer, as a black leather-clad Cash Savage, The Unicorn's coach, has her minions literally chained to her, just as she (and by proxy, the team) are connected by invisible tendrils to the bar itself. 

Team supporters will recognise Mapo's brilliant mark over the head of Old Bar figurehead, Joel Morrison; whilst a lonely figure facing the bar seems somehow to be psychically pulled, guitar-in-hand, towards the footy oval, along with the viewer's eye. Amidst all this, the artist (presumably) wields a beer and bat, as if momentarily forgetting the nature of the drunken game being celebrated by his team-mates, in a veritable maelstrom of strong, primary colours. A tiny penguin divides the frame in the foreground, as if to affirm what followers of Butcher's art have long suspected - forget about Australia, Ben Butcher is quite possibly the Worst Artist in the World! And more power to him, and the pub football team he represents." - Matt Gleeson

This painting will be available for viewing and sale from 7pm, Tuesday 24th March at the Old Bar Gallery, 74 Johnston Street Fitzroy, Vic, Australia.