Contemporary
Australian Art
1 TIm mAGUIRE
Tim Maguire first came to national prominence
in the early 1980s with confident landscape
paintings that reassessed canonical Australian
outback scenes. His interest in the landscape has
since been inflected by a long period spent living
in Europe, but much of his work still revolves
around the metaphorical powers of landscape,
whether Australian deserts or urban European
scenes, as in these recent oversized prints.
Maguire showed three immense prints titled
Falling snow I
,
II
and
III
2008, which are related
to the three newly acquired works (
Trees and
snow I
,
II
and
III
), in the Gallery’s 2008–09
‘Contemporary Australia: Optimism’ exhibition.
Tim maguire
| Australia/United Kingdom b.1958 |
Trees and snow I
2008 | Digital pigment ink on paper, ed. 3/5 | 180.2 x 119.8cm (irreg.);
180.2 x 119.6cm (comp., irreg.); 192.5 x 132.5 x 4.5cm (framed) |
Gift of an anonymous donor through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation 2012. Donated through the Australian Government’s
Cultural Gifts Program
2 GORDON bENNETT
Queensland artist Gordon Bennett’s paintings
often focus on his own Aboriginality, the
Eurocentric schooling he experienced, the
subjectivity of history, patriarchal knowledge
systems and racism.
Notes to Basquiat: Perfect
Teeth
2000 comes from the important extended
series, ‘Notes to Basquiat’, which was a major
theme in Gordon Bennett’s work throughout
the 1990s — a selection of works on paper from
this series was included in ‘The 3rd Asia Pacific
Triennial of Contemporary Art’ in 1999. ‘Notes to
Basquiat’ was named for Jean-Michel Basquiat
(1960–88), the first African American artist to be
internationally acclaimed.
Gordon bennett
| Australia b.1955 |
Notes to Basquiat: Perfect Teeth
2000 | Synthetic polymer paint on canvas | 182.5 x 182.5cm | The
James C Sourris,
AM
, Collection. Gift of James C Sourris,
AM
, through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012. Donated through the
Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
3 bRENT hARRIS
Prominent painter and printmaker Brent Harris
explores the fine line between figuration and
abstraction. This early work illustrates Harris’s
journey from geometric abstraction towards an
idiosyncratic exploration of the mind and body.
Station X (The disrobing)
is from ‘The Stations’, a
body of work comprising a series of 14 paintings
and a portfolio of prints (also in the Gallery’s
Collection). The work refers to the stations of
the cross, representing the Passion of Christ.
Gifted to the Gallery by James Mollison,
AO
,
former director of the National Gallery of
Australia, Canberra, and the National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne, this donation demonstrates
Mollison’s continued commitment to public art
collections throughout Australia.
brent harris
| Australia b.1956 |
Station X (The disrobing)
1989 | Oil on
canvas | 197.8 x 90.9cm; 200.7 x 93.5 x 5.5cm (framed) | Gift of James
Mollison,
AO
, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012.
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
4 RObERT hUNTER
Each of Robert Hunter’s paintings relates to the
one immediately before and after in his artistic
output, building on perceptual problems that
are solved and then progressed. This generative
nature has made his practice arguably the most
uncompromising — the most unfettered by trends
or shifting attitudes — in Australian art history.
Untitled
1971 comprises stencilled grids painted
on gallery walls. The stencils are created from a
lattice of masking tape and splashed with diluted
paint with a paintbrush, revealing the touch of the
artist’s hand, which causes shifts in perception.
Untitled
was recently installed on the Pavilion
Walk at GOMA for the 2012 exhibition ‘Ten Years
of Contemporary Art: The James C Sourris
AM
Collection’.
Robert hunter
| Australia b.1947 |
Untitled
1971 | Synthetic polymer
paint | Ten parts: 162 x 163cm (each, irreg.); installed dimensions
variable | The James C Sourris,
AM
, Collection. Gift of James C Sourris,
AM
, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012. Donated
through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program |
© Robert Hunter 1971. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney, 2013
68
// REVEAl
/ REVIEW 2012
THECOLLECTION
REVEAL
