Brian Blanchflower

(England, Australia 1939– )

Title

London stone / southern heat

Year

1983

Media category

Painting

Materials used

synthetic polymer paint, chalk, oilstick on flax canvas

Dimensions

130.0 x 584.0cm

Credit

Moët & Chandon Art Acquisition Fund 1987

Accession number

464.1987

Copyright

Location

Not on display

Further information

For Brian Blanchflower, spirit and matter combined describe an enigmatic paradigm and provide the premise for a career that has spanned more than four decades. His densely layered paintings of nature, showing activities in the cosmos and on earth, evoke a space beyond their material dimension. Such concerns find their genesis in the topographies of England and Australia, both of which have deeply influenced Blanchflower’s work. He grew up and studied in London during the 1960s. Like other British artists of the same generation, Blanchflower spent some time walking through Wales and England, specifically the southwest, where prehistoric sites such as Stonehenge had a significant impact. Notably, such sites symbolise ancient endeavours to understand the nature of humanity within the universe. When Blanchflower arrived in Australia in 1972, settling in Perth, the subject of his paintings shifted from the skies to the immensity of the Australian landscape, although he remained concerned by the ability of art to realise a spirit of place or being in material form. He encountered this with Aboriginal culture and its powerful traditions of image-making wherein land, culture, custodianship and spirit are inextricable from the form of their art.

In 1983 Blanchflower spent a year in London, and it was here that he painted ‘London stone/ southern heat’. The title is a culmination of past and present concerns: from the English megaliths that captured his early fascination to the Australian environment, particularly the intensity of the sun and weather. Indeed the painting grapples with the inherent polarities of nature including the bleak blue light of English winter and the arresting red heat of an Australian summer. In ‘London stone/southern heat’, red, blue and black marks spread out across the surface of a large hanging flax canvas, creating an abstract view of an undulating landscape. There is energy in Blanchflower’s technique, suggested by the coarse thickness of paint on the canvas, the repeated gestures that both recede and deepen, and the layering of pigments which visually swell the material surface. The viewer is drawn into the textures and space created by this work, as it pictorially maps out a rhythm of time passing – marks, gestures and colour metaphorically charting the passage of the heavens or the earth.

Bibliography (7)

Anthony Bond (England; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 2006, 298-299 (colour illus.). illustration on pg.99 is a detail

Bruce Adams (Author), Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Perth, 1985, 5-6, 11.

The Western Mail 20 Apr 1985-21 Apr 1985, 20 Apr 1985-21 Apr 1985.

City Focus Apr 1985, Apr 1985, 17.

West Australian 09 Apr 1985, 09 Apr 1985.

'Big results from artist's return trip to homeland' by Phyllis Willcock., The Courier Mail 26 Jun 1986, 26 Jun 1986.

Praxis M 1984, 1984.

Exhibition history (10)

Brian Blanchflower 'Works in Progress', Air & Space, 28 Apr 1984–29 Apr 1984.

Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery, 1985–1985.

Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 1985–1985.

Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 06 Apr 1985–05 May 1985.

Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 15 Oct 1985–02 Nov 1985.

Inundations Recent Paintings by Brian Blanchflower, Milburn Gallery, 18 Jun 1986–05 Jul 1986.

Surface for Reflection (1987), Art Gallery of New South Wales, 22 Jan 1987–22 Feb 1987.

Brian Blanchflower Works 1961-1989, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 25 Jan 1990–11 Mar 1990.

Brian Blanchflower Works 1961-1989, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 09 Oct 1990–25 Nov 1990.

Space-matter-colour: Brian Blanchflower, paintings from four decades, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, 14 May 2010–01 Aug 2010.