Dale Frank in a scene from Nobody’s Sweetie.Credit:Umbrella Entertainment
To paint,he uses a jug,pouring the pigments onto a perspex surface before manipulating them with a long-handled implement which looks as if it would be more at home in a toolshed.
His garden is signposted by lofty date palms and Moreton Bay figs,many of which have been uprooted from demolition sites and transported by semi-trailers to be hoisted by cranes into the holes waiting for them on his property. And Hambledon Hill’s homestead,built in the 1860s,is just as spectacular. Along with Frank himself,it houses a large menagerie of stuffed animals. Zebras,giraffes,gazelles and antelopes look down from its vividly painted walls while a lion,a snow leopard and some pugnacious bears mingle in its rooms and halls.
Jenny Hicks’ documentary on Frank was three years in the making,interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and hampered at times by its tiny budget,but the stop-and-start nature of the shoot is not reflected in the film’s pacing. If anything,it probably helped to enhance its sense of intimacy.
By his own admission,Frank is a difficult character. He suffers chronic nerve pain in his neck and hip and was recently diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum which he sees as an explanation as to why he shuns crowds and is uneasy in the company of strangers. Nor is he particularly communicative with those closest to him. But perhaps he doesn’t need to be.
Dale Frank starts a work by pouring pigments onto perspex.Credit:Umbrella Entertainment
He and his long-standing studio assistant,Trevelyan Clay,might not talk much but a wryly laconic state of understanding exists between them. And Hicks,who remains off-camera,says that she was firm friends with him by the end of filming. Nonetheless,he’s unfailingly blunt with his answers to the questions and comments she tosses at him from time to time. He is quick to tell her if he thinks any of these questions are stupid and when she dares to use the word,“playful”,to describe one of his pieces,he snaps back,telling her she’s being patronising.
The film records his preparations for his 36th exhibition at Roslyn Oxley’s Sydney gallery. Oxley has been showing his work since 1982 when he returned to Australia after carving out a successful career as a painter,sculptor and performance artist in Europe and New York. Postmodernism was in vogue,and he was in tune with it,gaining a reputation as one of art’s bad boys with the irreverence of his style. Dr Edward Colless,one of a team of academics,writers and curators who appear in the film,describes him as having “handled his ego with great theatrical flair”.