The Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne is presenting the first comprehensive survey of Australian artist John Nixon's work, spanning from the 1960s until his death in 2020. 'Song of the Earth' showcases Nixon's five-decade career of relentless experimentation and creativity, offering visitors a complete view of an artist who continuously pushed boundaries across multiple forms and genres.

At the heart of the exhibition sits 'Untitled/Black' (1968), a small monochrome painting measuring only nine centimeters square that Nixon considered the foundation of his artistic project. Made from scraps of linen and wood discarded by fellow art students, this modest work hangs alone in a side gallery, framed by the doorway between two spaces. Despite its humble materials and size, the painting represents a pivotal moment that would influence Nixon's practice for the next 50 years.

Nixon's artistic awakening came through three influential exhibitions he encountered in quick succession at the National Gallery of Victoria. 'Two Decades of American Painting' (1967) exposed him to major postwar American movements including abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. The following year, 'Marcel Duchamp / the Mary Sisler Collection: 78 works 1904-1963' challenged conventional ideas about artistic authorship by presenting everyday objects as art. 'The Field' (1968) demonstrated that Australian artists could meaningfully engage with international developments through formalist abstraction, color field painting, and minimalism.

Throughout the 1970s, Nixon embraced minimalism and conceptualism to fundamentally rethink art-making processes. He temporarily abandoned creating physical objects in favor of text-based provocations typed on index cards. One work referenced Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' (1962), which introduced the concept of paradigm shifts - the collapse and replacement of frameworks when challenged by increasing anomalies. Another cited Paul Feyerabend's 'Against Method' (1975), which connected scientific progress to rule-breaking and promoted methodological pluralism through an 'anything goes' philosophy.

The artist consistently incorporated ordinary materials and objects into his work, folding the texture of daily life directly into abstract logic. When his studio was a kitchen, paintings featured seeds or grains pressed into their surfaces or had kitchen utensils attached. During periods of country living, he created monochromes from potato sacks and incorporated tools from local hay and grain stores. This approach differed from Marcel Duchamp's readymades by avoiding the elevation of single objects through designation alone, instead integrating everyday materiality into sustained artistic practice.

Nixon drew inspiration from diverse sources beyond visual art, referencing filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, who disrupted cinematic narrative to show film's capacity for critical reinvention, and Samuel Beckett, who reduced language and story to bare essentials to reshape dramatic and literary possibilities. His work incorporated key ideas from Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, Kasimir Malevich, and Kurt Schwitters, selectively adapting their concepts to serve his own purposes while expanding into music, film, and photography as an amateur practitioner.

In 1990, Nixon crystallized his thinking through the Experimental Painting Workshop (EPW), an open, site-responsive framework for sustained experimentation. The exhibition features a large group of EPW works demonstrating his exploration of painting's limits through abstraction and readymade elements. 'EPW: Orange' (1995) tested possibilities within a single dominant color, while 'EPW: Silver' (2001 onwards) examined the interplay between reflective surfaces and rough textures. 'EPW: Polychrome' (2006 onwards) expanded chromatic ranges while treating color relationships like musical structures, exploring repetition, variation, and rhythm.

The artist's applied painting projects from 2009 onwards extended his experimental approach into operatic and theatrical contexts, drawing on Russian constructivist stage design to explore painting in performative, cross-disciplinary forms. Collaborative projects such as Anti-music and The Donkeys Tail further extended his commitment to experimentation beyond painting into sound, performance, and collective creation.

Curators Sue Cramer and Melissa Keys have assembled works into a single historical framework that reveals how different elements of Nixon's practice contribute to a cohesive whole. In her comprehensive essay for the exhibition catalogue, Cramer highlights the lyricism running alongside the analytical foundations of Nixon's work, noting that the Russian avant-garde captured both his heart and mind. The recurring nature imagery in Nixon's writings and the simplicity of conception in his physical works reflect his poetic sensibility.

'Song of the Earth' demonstrates how Nixon consistently rejected the notion that radical modernism was exhausted, instead breathing new life into avant-garde concerns while maintaining his commitment to experimentation as both refusal and catalyst. The exhibition reveals an artistic universe that unfolded from a specific point of origin in 1968 and continued developing in increasingly nuanced and unexpected directions until his death in 2020.

'John Nixon: Song of the Earth 1968-2020' continues at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne through March 9, providing rare access to the complete scope of an artist's tireless creativity, innovation, and productivity across more than five decades of sustained artistic practice.