Streets and Yards (1990)
Exhibition details
The subjects and ideas for these paintings come out of my own rather ordinary suburban life. They reflect contemporary life in middle Australia . I have tried to catch the glimpses of wonderment that surface from the greyness of the everyday.
My impulse to start a work is always a narrative once; usually the relationship of a figure of figures to one another or to the environment. My process is a zig-zag one between formal means and observed objects. I work like this until the image reaches its most concentrated power. The direction of the work at a certain point seems to be relayed by the work itself.
Recently I have been influenced by the 19th Century art. There is a richness of ideas during this period as symbolism and realism blended and reacted. Since this period, there seems to be a desire for a purer art – art for its own sake. I think that this has isolated art from life or at least produced art only meaningful to an initiated few.
Images:
- 02-016: Girls Skipping, 1989, acrylic on plywood, 36 x 56 cm
- 02-017: Jackhammer, 1990, acrylic on cotton duck, 33 x 55 cm
- 03: Hill Street, 1990, acrylic on cotton duck, 54 x 56 cm
- 04: Head, 1989, acrylic on cotton duck, 24 x 30 cm
- 05: Boy on Trike, 1989, acrylic on cotton duck, 45 x 32 cm
- 06: Hanging the washing, 1990, acrylic on cotton duck, 56 x 36 cm