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拍品專文
In 1952, inspired by archaeologist and explorer Thor Heyerdahl's account of his Kon Tiki expedition, Ian Fairweather set off from Darwin to 'call on an old friend in Timor' (M. Bail, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, p.104). The voyage, on a perilously fragile raft constructed by the artist from aircraft tanks, rope, fencing wire and parachute silk was to prove near fatal, and Fairweather was shipwrecked on the island of Roti, the westernmost point off Timor, sixteen days into the journey. It was only eighteen months later, however, that Fairweather was able to return to Australia, almost immediately settling on Bribie Island, then an isolated, swampy retreat just north of Brisbane, which would remain his home until his death in 1974.
Fairweather's experiences on this notorious expedition prompted a new, powerful vision in the troubled artist. His earlier works, derived from his experiences travelling through China, the Philippines, Europe and Australia. After this journey the artist discovered a new proclivity for line and a capacity for rendering his complex near abstract meditations on masonite, cardboard and newspaper.
In July 1960, Ian Fairweather wrote to Treania Smith at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney: "After my little dip into abstraction I find that I can't get back again and am quite bushed" (M. Bail, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, p.170). This 'little dip' proved a watershed for Fairweather, allowing him to find his balance between, in his own words, "representation and the other thing - whatever that is." (Ian Fairweather, 26 November 1965, in M. Bail (ed.) Fairweather, Brisbane, 1994, p. 139), and it is these later works for which the artist has become most revered.
Painting II was exhibited as one of a series of eleven works in Fairweather's one-man show at Macquarie Galleries in July 1960. The elegance of their expression through an economy of line and brushstroke remains unique. In Painting II, the artist walks his tightrope: broad swathes of soft pink are almost figuritive in some places - suggesting the form of a baby in the upper left corner - but these figural vestiges are also gestures that flow into painterly rhythms as they cross the picture plane. Beneath them layers of indigo and deep rust-red are intersected by lines of black, reminiscent of his passion for Chinese calligraphy. Not unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the composition evocative but ultimately ambiguous. "He is articulating mood" wrote Murray Bail. (M Bail, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, p. 162)
The new vision that Fairweather's painting revealed took time for its audience to grasp, but their status in Australian art history is now assured. The works "remain among Australia's finest paintings - certainly the finest abstract painting - and fine enough to be shown without equation to the rest of the world. For Fairweather here has consciously used abstraction to speak of experience beyond the experience of art itself. Painted in the winter of a long and difficult life the grey paintings arouse a subtle resonance, a contemplative serenity. Perhaps here in this vague zone resides the natural but difficult power of abstract art." (M. Bail, op. cit., 1981, p.161-162).
Fairweather's experiences on this notorious expedition prompted a new, powerful vision in the troubled artist. His earlier works, derived from his experiences travelling through China, the Philippines, Europe and Australia. After this journey the artist discovered a new proclivity for line and a capacity for rendering his complex near abstract meditations on masonite, cardboard and newspaper.
In July 1960, Ian Fairweather wrote to Treania Smith at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney: "After my little dip into abstraction I find that I can't get back again and am quite bushed" (M. Bail, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, p.170). This 'little dip' proved a watershed for Fairweather, allowing him to find his balance between, in his own words, "representation and the other thing - whatever that is." (Ian Fairweather, 26 November 1965, in M. Bail (ed.) Fairweather, Brisbane, 1994, p. 139), and it is these later works for which the artist has become most revered.
Painting II was exhibited as one of a series of eleven works in Fairweather's one-man show at Macquarie Galleries in July 1960. The elegance of their expression through an economy of line and brushstroke remains unique. In Painting II, the artist walks his tightrope: broad swathes of soft pink are almost figuritive in some places - suggesting the form of a baby in the upper left corner - but these figural vestiges are also gestures that flow into painterly rhythms as they cross the picture plane. Beneath them layers of indigo and deep rust-red are intersected by lines of black, reminiscent of his passion for Chinese calligraphy. Not unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the composition evocative but ultimately ambiguous. "He is articulating mood" wrote Murray Bail. (M Bail, Ian Fairweather, Sydney, 1981, p. 162)
The new vision that Fairweather's painting revealed took time for its audience to grasp, but their status in Australian art history is now assured. The works "remain among Australia's finest paintings - certainly the finest abstract painting - and fine enough to be shown without equation to the rest of the world. For Fairweather here has consciously used abstraction to speak of experience beyond the experience of art itself. Painted in the winter of a long and difficult life the grey paintings arouse a subtle resonance, a contemplative serenity. Perhaps here in this vague zone resides the natural but difficult power of abstract art." (M. Bail, op. cit., 1981, p.161-162).