The reductive logic that MacPherson applied to his painting practice in the 1970s is applied here to his tool, the standard house painter’s brush. Examining it closely and considering its history, MacPherson traces a backwards path from use, to purchase, to manufacture and sees that the paintbrush is already a painted object. He relinquishes the…
Robert MacPherson’s work is often positioned against the historically pervasive national traditions in Australian art of landscape painting and heroic narrative. His works evoking landscape and important figures are tinged with irony, and attempt to look beyond stereotype and jingoism. Yet still they suggest something specifically Australian – whether it is language, food or cultural…
Continue reading » “Robert MacPherson: NATIONAL ART: A SIMPLISTIC VIEW ‘QUEENSLAND SERIES’”
In the Mayfair (Peerless) series MacPherson returns to colour after thinking it inessential, and generally maintaining a monochromatic palette for his paintings of the 1970s. Taking their name from MacPherson’s drycleaner, the Peerless works use a drycleaner’s receipt with its sequence of named colours as a plan for making suites of single-colour paintings. In this…
The Peter Tyndall and Robert MacPherson Correspondence Archive 1979–2014 in the QAGOMA Research Library is the result of 35 years of exchange between these celebrated Australian artists. They began corresponding after their first meeting at Ray Hughes Gallery in Brisbane in 1979 when the artworks for Tyndall’s exhibition at the gallery were stuck in transit due…
Robert MacPherson produced several groups of work titled Scale From the Tool in the late 1970s, mostly on canvas, in order to explore the painterly possibilities of standard house painting brushes. Taking his title from the name of the chosen brush brand (South Australian Brush Company), MacPherson does something different here. He retains the proportions…
Continue reading » “Robert MacPherson: SCALE FROM THE TOOL (SABCO)”
‘Swags and Swamp Rats’ is the seventh Children’s Art Centre exhibition developed in collaboration with a contemporary Australian artist. It takes children on a journey with Robert MacPherson and introduces them to the people, places and objects that inspire him. Need some inspiration for these school holidays? We are thrilled to have had the opportunity…