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	The art of Alasdair Macintyre	Current Work
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	Reconstructing the Babylonian Artifice (2003) Fibreglass, resin, acrylic/enamel paint, inkjet print, wood, vinyl 430 x 580 x 500mm Private Collection. Exhibited in the exhibition "Alasdair Macintyre", 60 Merivale Street (Artworkers), Brisbane, July 2003.



	(details)
	"I was 13 years of age before setting foot in any kind of Art Gallery. I was in year 9, and all the art classes at my high school (Wavell State High) were taken on buses to the newly built Queensland Art Gallery, to see what is now known as a "blockbuster" exhibition, "Pop Art". I knew nothing about art at this stage, but from an early age I could draw well, which is why I always chose art in school. Sometimes I wish that I could press some kind of internal cerebral "rewind" button, and replay the entire outing in real-time in my head, for it was such a momentous experience for me, becoming more precious as the years pass. Now I can only recall certain snapshot moments of that sunny day in 1984, such as being corralled onto the buses at high school before the outing, the clean, vast, high walls of the inside of the Art Gallery, the internal water malls, and then the work in the exhibition itself. Among the few images I can recall are a painting of the Phantom, a group of massive billiard balls on the floor, a life-like sculpture of a construction worker, and some others, more blurry. Of course, names of artists meant nothing to me at that stage, and it is only in retrospect that I realise that I was fortunate enough to have seen works by Mel Ramos, Claus Oldenburg, Duane Hanson, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Arman. Indeed, I am forever grateful to my high school for taking their art students to the gallery on this, and other occasions. For over two decades later, as a teacher myself, I discovered how stressful and logistically this procedure was! But no matter how stressful, the long term rewards are manifold. The school took us the "20th. Century Masters" exhibition the following year, where I saw the likes of de Kooning, Rothko, Picasso, Miro, Klee, de Chirico, and many others. On both occasions, I remember that I broke away from the group, as we were being rushed towards the buses, making for the Gallery Store to buy the catalogue for the show, which I still have to this day. Inside the cover of the "Pop Art" catalogue, written in an adolescent scrawl, is "Alasdair Macintyre, 9.4". It was the first art book I ever bought, and I remember the price of its purchase really hurt me at the time, I think perhaps that my mother had given me some money to put towards it too. Alasdair Macintyre, May 2003
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