Redbase Art Gallery proudly presents The Evolution of Angels by esteemed figurative drawer, Michael Esson. The juxtaposition of ugly and beautiful (美与丑), has run as an undercurrent across his career, where he examines the fluidity between the two terms. Reflecting on recuring iconographies, images of rats, butterflies, ribbons, and human anatomy take on complex meanings. Rats, for example, once “harbingers of death” in the form of plague are now a positive subject of research assisting numerous medical and psychological advances in social behaviour. Esson grapples with their changing forms within the expanded scope of drawing history.

Across his most recent bodies of work, Esson has dissected these reoccurring motifs through their historical and present-day connotations. Butterflies appear intermittently in his drawings to represent beauty and the soul, a common theme across many cultures. While in the 4 Dancers series, one of the "harbingers of death" dances with a broken umbrella. Esson uses this as a metaphor for the human condition: discarded when they can no longer function. Botticelli's Birth of Venus also gets a nod as if the dancer is emerging from a scallop shell. Here, the medium of drawing being closely linked the generation of ideas is used as a surreal play on various words, forms, and icons. Esson channels a quote by William Kentridge, "My purpose is not to make sense but to make art".

Michael Esson was born in Scotland in 1950 and graduated in 1977 with a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London. His artistic career spans multiple mediums, with figurative drawing running as an undercurrent across his practice. Esson examines the representation of the human figure through anatomy, morality, and the self. Outside of his practice, he has contributed to the field of medical education by developing artistic courses to assist plastic surgeons. The impetus of which, came from a formative residence at the Royal College of Surgeons. Esson has been a Professor of Drawing at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom, and served as the Australian Director of the International Drawing Research Institute at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.