Shaun GLADWELL, Storm sequence 2000
PF: I came upon a Shaun painting at a Helen Lempriere Scholarship exhibition, in a sea of what was then termed ‘Grunge’, and here was this beautifully painted double figure; two historical figures. And...
View ArticleFiona MacDONALD, Five paces 1989
PF: Fiona was a young artist, along with a lot of young artists who were showing in the Mori Gallery in Sydney. And this was a work for a show which was site specific, at Elizabeth Bay House, in...
View ArticlePat THOMPSON, Pink 1972
PF: This is a piece called Pink, by Pat Thompson, an English lady, and I was living in Leeds and had shown very little interest in the visual arts in a career of teaching, and I was hurrying home and...
View ArticleDallas BRAY, Hairy man 1992
PF: Dallas would primarily be a visual artist; a painter, but every now and again he’s made models, and in an age today of model-making, they are very, very crude. But to me that sense of crudeness is...
View ArticleGina SINOZICH, Poppy field 2002
PF: Gina, in terms of artists who have joined the collection, or joined the family, or whatever it might be, is certainly the last at the end of a long line. Somebody had rung me; an artist friend of...
View ArticleAva SEYMOUR, White wedding, Invercargill 1997
PF: The moment I saw this particular work… It’s from a series that she did. Maybe about fifteen or twenty images, where she photographed housing estates in New Zealand, and then collaged figures onto...
View ArticleBill CULBERT, Yellow still life 1989
PF: Bill Culbert’s light box is interesting, because the yellow in it is a very intense yellow, which reminds me of the reflector pieces that Rosalie made so famous. It’s also three or four found...
View ArticleLeo CUSSEN, Xena 2000
PF: This square, the text, and the black object are vying for attention, vying for story telling. Whose story is it here that we are looking at? What is the relationship of the so-called ‘dimension of...
View ArticleLisa REID, Self-portrait at three months 2002
PF: Arts Project is an artists’ space in Melbourne, which has been going now for about twenty years, where people go to work. And there are trained artists there to assist. I’ve been going to this...
View ArticleNoel McKENNA, Lost, Heathcliff 2001
PF: Here is this dog… someone’s pet… lost. And what Noel has done here is to recreate in paint the dynamic of the poster, mainly that which has come into play since home computers and desktop...
View ArticleKen WHISSON, Dark sail 1967
PF: I suppose it was through Rosalie that I really got to look at these Ken Whissons and just adored them; they were fantastic. I eventually met Ken, and had bought a series of drawings, and then...
View ArticleKen BOTTO, Deep shadows 1983
PF: I was travelling through the United States and had stopped off in San Francisco, and there was an art fair on at the hotel I was staying in. So, I thought ‘Oh, I’ll have a look through here’ and...
View ArticleLaurence ABERHART, Moreporks (Bird Skins Room no. 2) Taranaki St, Wellington,...
PF Laurence is a New Zealand photographer, and on this occasion the museum was moving in New Zealand and had been closed down, and Laurence was allowed in behind the scenes to photograph the objects...
View ArticleRicky SWALLOW, Clockman 1998
PF: I’d gone into Darren Knight Gallery, and this tiny piece high up on the wall, just so tiny and vulnerable, and yet I actually didn’t know the reference. It’s a reference to a Charles Ray...
View ArticleSlim BARRIE, Lady driver 2000
PF: A very great friend of mine, Nigel Lenden, found one of Slim’s boats in an op-shop in Lakes Entrance, and he rang me immediately and said ‘I’ve found something here that you’re going to be...
View ArticleVal SUTHERLAND, Shell doll 2000
PF: Val is a New Zealand artist who lives in the sort of hinterland of the North Island, and almost through a rural isolation and very straightened circumstances which she lives, is somebody whose...
View ArticleRobert MACPHERSON, Mayfair: Fresh Cut, 2 Frog Poems and a Rose for William...
PF: MacPherson’s work I have looked at for a long, long time. This particular work; I’ve never really looked upon it as being an image of a vase of flowers. To me this is very much a painting about...
View ArticleRosalie GASCOIGNE, Down to the silver sea 1981-82
PF: I was very fortunate to meet Rosalie. I met Rosalie at a time when I had left teaching and was starting to make work myself, and had struggled with painting, which I was not happy with, and it...
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