Still Life with Bottle and Glass
76 x 91 cms 1994
This painting was started at Mt Compass, abandoned when we moved, and completely
reworked at Currency Creek, where I was painting in the dining room.
This was probably the first painting that I decided wasn't working as it
was (a very straight portrait piece) so, rather than waste the time and
canvas, I relieved some anger.
It is a painting around some unwelcome visitors, received shortly after we arrived in Australia, in our suburban setting. Hence the slightly irregular shapes, all heavy and very sharply defined, the wall and grass thickly textured, everyone ugly and staring straight at you, backed by the banality of suburbia. It was the first time I used a frame painted onto the canvas, a hard vivid red boxing it all in, distorted like everything else.
I gave it the title because there is a bottle and a glass in it and it is, after all, still life.
At this stage Country Arts SA had seen my work in the office but told me to go away for a year and build up a body of paintings, then send in a submission for their NewLand Gallery, which I dutifully did. They purchased this painting for their collection during that exhibition.
