Theo Koning: Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre and Art Gallery of Western Australia

by Marco Marcon.

When I moved to Perth from Italy in the mid-1980s, I was struck by the local art scene’s obsession with the question of regionalism—or provincialism, as people called it when they felt despondent. There was a lot of talk about the “cultural cringe” and “influences” from the “centre”—or centres—and how to negotiate them. It was a bit monotonous, but it showed a healthy degree of self-awareness. I grew up in Rome, a cultural backwater that, unlike Perth, is largely unaware of its marginality.
        By coincidence, that was also the time when Postmodernism rediscovered the value of vernacular culture and celebrated it as a counterpoint to the bland uniformity of modernist universalism. Such authoritative theoretical validation by eminent theorists from the world’s cultural capitals encouraged those of us in the provinces to search for signs of autochthonous originality that would counter the two major sins of peripheral cultures. The first is the temptation to slavishly imitate dominant trends without truly understanding them. The second is the refusal to engage in a global dialogue for fear of being “influenced,” much like teenagers who don’t want to read books, as they tell their high school teachers.
        When I first met Theo Koning, he was among the most well-known and well-liked artists of a younger generation from Western Australia who were seen as articulating a distinctly local artistic voice. Theo, along with many artists who emerged around the same time, lived in and drew inspiration from Fremantle, Perth’s port city. This was in contrast to white artists of the previous generations, who had mostly lived and worked in the hills surrounding Perth, thus emulating the so-called Australian Impressionists’ habit of painting “unspoiled” landscapes found at the end of the tramline. Although gentrification has significantly altered Fremantle’s original character, the area remained vibrant throughout the 1970s and 80s, when its unique urban and community atmosphere encouraged artists to seek a sense of belonging and inspired many artworks.


But this quest for authenticity and originality raises questions. Is vernacularity spontaneous or constructed? Do cultures or individuals ever exist in a state of innocent unself-consciousness? Don’t we always curate the personas we want to project, not just to others but to ourselves? And aren’t authenticity and originality Modernist myths we need to move beyond? Isn’t Postmodernism’s celebration of the vernacular contradictory? The Postmodern condition is one of copies without originals, surfaces without depth, masks without faces, and increasingly, lies without truths. This is why successful regional artists often embrace the simulacrum rather than seek local genuineness.
        But even if the “centre” has no truth, it still has power. It is a deterritorialised marketplace where artists from various backgrounds use their cultures of origin as marketing tools or as embellishments for artworks that are no longer rooted in any genuine anthropological or historical context. The “centre” is the place where deals are made and networking takes place. And, yes, you need to be there in person. The artistic circles of cities like Berlin, London and New York are like the court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV: social microcosms severed from ordinary reality, airless cultural glasshouses populated by deracinated courtiers vying for prestige and recognition.
        Nothing could be more alien to Theo Koning’s world. Even when he succumbed to the lure of the international art movements of the day, he did so playfully and without any sense of seriousness or conviction. Theo was so effortlessly talented, his touch so light and easy, that he could dress up as a Conceptualist without his work losing grace and humour.


Other Western Australian artists from the same generation as Theo, particularly those linked to Media Space, were more attuned to the latest international trends. They focused more on concepts, programs, intentions, technology, theory and communication codes. Theo was a maker, a bricoleur, someone who instinctively understood form, colour, texture and materials. These are qualities that are now somewhat passé unless coupled with a catchy conceptual quip. Maybe this is why, although I had great pleasure looking at Theo’s work, not many pieces stayed with me—perhaps only the black-and-white ink drawings and the driftwood assemblages. I guess my soul has been spoiled by too much post-conceptualism. Or could it be that Theo had immense talent but lacked a truly distinctive voice?
        I must say I feel a touch of imposter syndrome when writing about Theo. His work was the manifestation of a local art scene I encountered late, and mostly retrospectively. Why should my opinion be of any value, given that so many of Theo’s contemporaries are still alive, though somewhat diminished by rusting neural synapses? I console myself by noting that outsider perspectives are very much a part of Fremantle’s identity, as the town was the first place where settlers and migrants set foot on a dispossessed land. People from far-off places, like Koning—the son of post-WW2 Dutch migrants—reinvented Fremantle after the original identity of Walyalup was erased by colonisation. Postmodernists are right: authenticity is a mask.
        This is an important exhibition. The history of contemporary art in Western Australia is almost as blurred as our awareness of Walyalup’s Indigenous dwellers’ culture. In this state, artistic experiences come and go, leaving hardly any trace behind, as new generations of artists and artistic trends remain oblivious to what came before them. While third-rate colonial buildings based on rote design templates are cherished as “heritage”, and second-rate Australian would-be “Impressionists” fill galleries, the artistic experiments of 30, 40, or 50 years ago are forgotten—except in the rare cases when artists become universally loved local heroes, like Koning. I was recently talking with an important cultural leader in Perth and was surprised by the many gaps in their knowledge of local art of the last half-century. The problem is not historical ignorance—God knows I too suffer from it!—but that this is not perceived as a problem, which may also explain why art history is no longer a compulsory subject for art students.
        The past and the present are in a dialectical relationship: the present emerges from the past but then reinterprets it, thereby recreating it. As far as I know, nobody has organised a survey of Carol Rudyard’s work since her death, and the archives of important local experiences such as Praxis Galleries, Praxis M, Artemis, ARX, Media Space, and others are largely forgotten, collecting dust rather than being put to good use. History is not a museum but the site of creative processes that generate new meaning. It is disturbing that so few people in the arts are interested in it. But maybe colonial societies have an addiction to forgetting, as they have too much to forgive themselves for.

Objet d’Art – Theo Koning and his Creative Self, Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre, 15 November 2025 – 26 January 2026.

Theo Koning: Object Syntax, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 20 December 2025 – 19 July 2026.

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Header images: Opening night Objet d’Art – Theo Koning and his Creative Self at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre. Artworks by Theo Koning. Photography by Ezra Elcantra.

Tile image: Mark Howlett Foundation Commission #8, studio documentation, 2003. Courtesy of the estate of the artist. Photography by Robert Frith.