ARTWORK PRESENTATION Contemporary Art 14 August 2015 JOHN CRUTHERS rococo pop pty ltd CONTENTS David Aspden 3 Brian Blanchower 7 Stephen Bush 11 William Delaeld Cook 15 Lesley Dumbrell 19 Dale Frank 23 Robert Jacks 27 Tim Johnson 31 Ildiko Kovaks 35 Richard Larter 39 William Mackinnon 43 Gareth Sansom 47 Imants Tillers 51 2 o only one tone. This signalled the end o the modernist peers managed to navigate this tricky divide but Aspden, DAVID painting project and led directly to conceptual art, where as a pure and instinctive painter, could not. the idea o the art was more important than the artwork ASPDEN itsel - indeed, there was often no artwork. Through the later 1980s Aspden struggled. In a more negative critical environment he found less support, and Born England 1935. Arrived Australia 1950. Died 2005. Painter. David Aspden did not proceed into conceptual art, commercial prospects for his work toughened. Leading recognising that it was pointless for him as a painter. galleries still wanted to show him, however, and in Sydney David Aspden’s father was a carpenter/pattern-maker and After experimenting with pouring and staining, he hit both Roslyn Oxley9 and Annandale Galleries had solo his grandfather a picture framer, so he was aware o art upon a style that immediately clicked. It was based on the shows. But sales were few and Aspden sought other rep- from an early age. When he was 15 the family migrated to coloured stripes o earlier paintings, but with their edges resentation - or did it himsel with his wife Karen Coote. Australia, settling in Wollongong. Aspden left school that broken up into interlocking leaf-like shapes. Eectively, Such moves meant he lacked the promotion a good dealer year to become an apprentice painter/sign-writer. Over the he re-introduced the biomorphic shapes o earlier paint- provides, and a stable price structure. next 12 years he worked at this trade, building technical ings. While some purist critics derided his insertion o skill and expertise in handling paint. the ‘natural world’ into an art practice that seemed to have In terms o the work, it continued moving forward. In evolved past it, Aspden was unapologetic. the catalogue for the 1986 exhibition Surface for reflexion During this period Aspden adopted a rigorous program o at the Art Gallery o£ NSW, curator Tony Bond described artistic self-education, beginning with plein air landscapes Once he’d xed on this style there was an outpouring o the course o his work as a shift from “a rigorous formal- and progressing to abstraction. To generate interest he work. He was immediately successful, and in 1971 ism to rather more open congurations”. The latter part entered local art shows and in 1963 won two prizes at the represented Australia at the Sao Paulo Biennale, where his o the shift is what Aspden achieved through this period. Wollongong Art Competition. This gave him the con- work was awarded a Gold Medal. Except for Brett His work loosened up and he began to enjoy the possibil- dence to embrace painting fulltime, and in 1964 he moved Whiteley’s International Prize at the 1961 Paris Biennale ities o expressive gesture and mark-making. Oceanic and to Sydney and set up a studio in Paddington. of Young Painters and Sculptors, this was the only award Aboriginal art had an inuence here. He also used the jazz granted in a major international event to an Australian o he always played in the studio as a prompt, aiming for the His rst exhibition in Sydney was at Watters Gallery Aspden’s generation. same spontaneity in his paintings as did Duke Ellington or in 1965. The works combined biomorphic shapes with Miles Davis in a solo. straight or vertical lines. The show was well reviewed and Through the 1970s, Aspden was one o Australia’s leading Aspden continued his push into abstraction, abandoning contemporary artists. He was purchased by museums, In early 2002 Aspden was the subject o a small survey natural forms for pure colour and geometry. His painting gained commissions for o¢ces and theatres, and was exhibition at the Orange Regional Art Gallery. David was inuenced by American post-painterly abstraction - chosen in major international touring exhibitions. The best Aspden - celebration of colour included signicant works the style that followed abstract expressionism. o these, Ten Australians, was curated by Patrick from 1970 to 2002. It showed what a strong painter David McCaughey and included Fred Williams, Roger Kemp, had been through his career, regardless o shifting fashion David Aspden was a pioneer o this style in Australia. In John Firth-Smith and Sid Ball. or popularity. 1968, when the striking new National Gallery o Victoria building was opened, the rst exhibition was called The Aspden’s career was well on track into the early 1980s. At the time o his death in 2005, David had a show booked Field. It was a survey o the best new Australian art in this He worked hard to keep his painting fresh - breaking up in Sydney. Rather than cancel, Karen decided to go ahead. style and included two paintings by Aspden. the forms, working on unprimed canvas or linen, varying It became a tribute exhibition, with long reviews by two the colours widely. But the early 1980s also signalled the leading critics, John McDonald (Sydney Morning Herald) Often called hard edge or colour eld painting, this birth o postmodernism, and as a new generation arose and Sebastian Smee (The Australian). Both made similar became the dominant style in local art around 1966. Later Aspden’s generation and style came to be seen as passe, as points - that Aspden had stuck to his guns as a painter, had it became more minimal until, by 1970, many artists had everything the new guard wanted to overturn. Some o his painted what he wanted and had sustained a high level o reached the monochrome - the canvas covered with paint 3 Grevillea 1976, acrylic on canvas, 158 x 376 cm, $65,000 quality and creativity over 40 years o painting. Smee felt Sydney began to manage the estate, having successful solo David Aspden was a leading artist o his generation and he was the best abstract painter o his generation. Both felt exhibitions in 2010 and 2013. a major post-war abstract painter. While instrumental in he was seriously underrated, and McDonald hoped a state introducing new ideas to Australian art, he remained gallery would take up the challenge o a retrospective. The two paintings below are from Aspden’s most creative independent o schools and theories – he was a pure painter period. Grevillea 1976 is an example o his skill at small- and a gifted colourist. At its best his work is some o the Shortly after, the Art Gallery o£ NSW committed to a scale mark-making and a pixelated eect as colours dance nest abstraction produced in Australia. survey o Aspden’s work, which ran in 2011. It was based across the surface. Giant steps 3 1975, named after a jazz on eight paintings and 40 works on paper gifted from the standard by John Coltrane, shows Aspden returning to the Aspden estate. The accompanying catalogue was the rst harder edged shapes o his earlier paintings. museum publication on his work. At this time Utopia Art 4 Giant steps #3 1975, oil on canvas, 159 x 320 cm, $60,000 5 His earliest Australian works were texture paintings in in it as observer and recorder o the elemental forces with BRIAN which he simulated the earth’s surface by adding sand to which all living things are charged. the paint. The sculptural works that followed included BLANCHFLOWER found objects and banners. In 1979 came a breakthrough. Blanchower is one o the most accomplished painters When a geological oddity was uncovered in the working in Australia. He has been little aected by the Born 1939 Brighton, UK. Arrived Australia 1972. Painter. construction o the Mitchell Freeway, Blanchower be- progressive movements o the last 30 years - conceptual came obsessed with it. He named it Leedermeg - as it was art and post modernism - both o which interposed various Brian Blanchower grew up on the Sussex Downs, an area found in Leederville - and conducted a ritual performance theoretical constraints between the artist and untrammeled noted for prehistoric sites such as eld patterns, monoliths on the spring solstice in which he poured honey over it. personal expression. His work is a reective and strongly and chalk drawings. Reminders o earlier human cultures On one level the honey signied the life force, and on felt response to the place in which he lives, and to the big and o the passing o time in the natural world, these sites another paint and its transformative potential. questions o western art and culture - who are we, where have inspired British artists as diverse as William Blake, do we come from, why are we here? What gives it power is John Constable, Paul Nash and Henry Moore. This ritual and others that followed served a complex the way his early contact with prehistoric art has led him function. They enabled the artist to connect with the to stress historical continuity rather than disjunction. Thus After completing art school in 1961, Blanchower and spirit o the place and forge his own relationship with it, he was open to Aboriginal art and could use its lessons to an artist friend spent four months walking through this in a similar way as had the ancient peoples o the Sussex enrich his own work. country. The sense o history embedded in the landscape Downs with their monoliths and chalk drawings.