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Arts & Communication Realist art of Kenneth Jack and rural towns

in Prospect, North Adelaide had an underground air-raid to itself and lives in established, leafy, secluded suburbs.
shelter/bunker. He was allegedly “assisted” in making That the abductors of the children may have had non-elite
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his move from Adelaide to Yatina to restrict his pedophile backgrounds and may have not been from Adelaide does
activities. This interpretation is idiosyncratic and personal, not disturb the imagery of the legend. That two abductions
but it shows that even a painting by a less confrontational from 50 years ago are still unsolved today suggests that
painter can have aspects to it, as well as an overall feel, certain people have been very skillful at keeping secrets
that conjures up darker images if read within the context among themselves.
of a known brutal crime. Yatina has probably suffered due The passage of time and memories of the old Adelaide
to its association with Hart, and although he was never are clearly seen in these stories too as we compare the
charged or found guilty regarding the Adelaide Oval traditional suburban football league of 1973 (North
abduction, his son reported him to the media and his name Adelaide versus Norwood) with the highly commodified
is associated with the case by online pundits. Eyewitness national league of today (the “AFL”), which has no
to the abduction, ice-cream seller Tony Kilmartin, then historic connection to Adelaide but which has colonized
aged 13, said in 2023 that Hart’s picture bears the most it financially and ideologically. It seems that some stories
resemblance to the man he saw that day. Abductee in Adelaide have not yet been told and the search goes on
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Joanne Ratcliffe’s sister, Suzie, is also convinced that Hart for the bodies and the blood. Jack tried to paint tranquil,
is the culprit, although police have also turned their peaceful images but sometimes either his commitment to
attention to the late Errol Radan. Thus, for someone like realism or his personal inclinations on a certain occasion
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me, who knew about the case, a relatively small detail like meant that one or two of his paintings featured darker or
the abandoned bathtub, and the threatening mood of the more disturbing aspects, which I have tried to link here to
painting, combined with the harshness of the land, saw me the true crimes of people like Hart (if he was indeed guilty
forming a connection between the painting and the Hart in these instances).
case. Although the painting was set in Queensland, and
Yatina is not, the harshness of the land and the (imagined) 7. Foucauldian perspective
desperation of the apparent lifestyle (unusual in Jack’s In his early work, Foucault tended to respect the creative
work) points to similarities across the two locations. genius of the tortured artist, paying specific attention
As the children’s bodies were never found, nor were to Nietzsche, van Gogh, and Artaud. His later work on
those of the three Beaumont children who went missing power/knowledge tended to replace this type of thinking
near Glenelg Beach, South Australia, in 1966, the mystery with power/knowledge subjecting every person within an
endures, and the bleakness and permanence of the setting institution and population to surveillance, categorization,
in the painting (and in Yatina) seem to evoke a hopelessness and normalization. There is not much room for the artist
in the viewer that matches people’s assessments of those true within this logic other than to see the artist as socially
crime cases. The land will not give up its secrets, just as Hart determined and as a person who can be brought to socially
never gave up his (if he had any). The heat radiates upon the determine others, such as an art teacher who helps to
dry settings, all year round, and we wonder where the bodies organize and inspire prisoners. The art industry, too, has
and dried blood are, which never received proper burials its power/knowledge where artists are classified according
or respect. The untamed nature of the land and of human to rank, status, style, temperament, and selling prices, thus
behavior seems to be the main message here, at least to those creating a tiered system of categorization. Rothenberg
who can link the Jack painting to the Hart/Yatina story. In says that “critics and other cultural gatekeepers elevate
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my personal interpretation, it is only the abandoned bathtub an object of art or artists to a socially revered place” and
that controls my reading of the painting as dark. that “success in the field requires the coordinate action of
a multitude of people and a social structure that supports
The remarkably brutal history of Adelaide appears, in a particular definition of success”. Jack would be in an
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one way, to be inconsistent with its isolated, suburban, Australian second tier, producing aesthetically pleasing
dull image, a place founded by free settlers that has lagged and uncontroversial paintings of rural scenes. By not
compared to the other cities in terms of population growth producing confrontational work that spoke to Australia’s
and economic progress. However, it is perhaps that type history of dispossession and oppression, Jack was able to
of city that allows dark cliques to form and control an avoid controversy and fill a role in the second tier where
underworld where children can be abused in institutions. his artistic skill could be acknowledged, and where rural
The legendary story of a pedophile ring, of people in high people could see their town painted in his conventional
places that could hide their secrets, does not seem too style. While he did not challenge in radical or upsetting
improbable in a city with a homegrown elite that keeps ways, his work still cries out for some form of interpretation.

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 8 doi: 10.36922/ac.3481