King & Queen (after Don Dale)

Queen Elizabeth poses atop the throne (Cecil Beaton, 1953) surveying the nation from beneath the Don Dale spit-mask. Beyond her in the grand romantic vista sits the solitary Modernist sculpture ‘Black Sun’ by Inga King (1975).
Inga King was a refugee of Nazi Europe who found a home in the other-worldly landscape of Australia and was until her death aged 100 (2016) a subject, like all of us, of an often blind and indifferent Crown.

Robert Hague’s imagery plays on the (im)permanence of historical objects, the ambiguities of their meanings, and the cultural associations of their forms. His prints, sculpture and video are immediately attractive but harbour contradicting layers that deepen the longer one considers them.