Title
Our faith part 1; no 4 - the case for and against colour
1985-1986
Artist
-
Details
- Date
- 1985-1986
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on board, blackboard paint on canvas
- Dimensions
-
a - panel a, 61 x 61 cm
b - panel b, 61 x 61 cm
c - panel c, 157 x 214 cm
d - panel d, 61 x 61 cm
e - panel e, 61 x 61 cm
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of Dr Colin and Mrs Elizabeth Laverty 2005
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 65.2005.a-e
- Copyright
- © Stieg Persson
- Artist information
-
Stieg Persson
Works in the collection
- Share
-
About
In common with many other artists in the 1980s in Australia, Stieg Persson developed a distinctive visual language through looking at the history of art. While the use of visual references to other artists has been called appropriation, it is a reductive term which does not allow for the many individual approaches at this time to acknowledging the legacy of history in contemporary art. Persson utilised elements of abstraction, figuration and the decorative in his canvases. This particular work dates from the mid-1980s when he reintroduced colour to his work after painting exclusively in black and white for a number of years.
The large centre panel includes shards of collaged canvas carefully applied to the 'base' canvas. This black and white panel has abstracted forms which almost look like fragments of text torn up and displaced on the picture surface. Persson has frequently worked with a cursive, almost calligraphic, line in his paintings which suggests decorative excess while recalling a particularly elegant, extravagant and old-fashioned signature.
The adjacent smaller panels have exquisitely painted elements suggestive of 17th century Dutch painting. Pearls emerge from a dramatic black ground and parrots hover over this void. The abstract and figurative panels are disjunctive, but both are seductive and compelling as they speak to an exploration of both the exhaustion and viability of different visual languages. Like a 'vanitas' painting bringing to mind our imminent mortality, these panels appear to embody the death of painting while celebrating its continuing power to engage.
-
Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Our Faith: The Case for and Against Colour, Part 1, Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Potts Point, 1986–1986
Our Faith: The Case for and Against Colour, Part 1, United Artists Gallery, St Kilda, 1986–1986
The Laverty Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 20 Jun 1998–23 Aug 1998
-
Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
-
Wayne Tunnicliffe, Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 'Cultural memory, critical distance', pg.154-203, Sydney, 2006, 157, 186, 187 (colour illus.).
-