The reductive logic that Robert 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…
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: A simplistic view of a national art”
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…
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: Exploring painterly possibilities”
Watch as we install Robert MacPherson’s ‘Boss Drovers’ containing 2400 individual drawings 1000 FROG POEMS: 1000 BOSS DROVERS (“YELLOW LEAF FALLING”) FOR H.S. 1996–2014 comprises 2400 individual drawings, all deliberately executed as if by the hand of a ten-year-old. Over a 20-year period, Robert MacPherson made these in the guise of his alter ego, Robert…
Continue reading » “Watch as we install Robert MacPherson’s Boss Drovers”
1000 FROG POEMS: 1000 BOSS DROVERS (“YELLOW LEAF FALLING”) FOR H.S. 1996–2014 comprises 2400 individual drawings, all deliberately executed as if by the hand of a ten-year-old. Over a 20-year period, Robert MacPherson made these in the guise of his alter ego, Robert Pene, a grade 4 student at St Joseph’s Convent, Nambour, Queensland. Each…
Continue reading » “Robert MacPherson: As if by the hand of a ten-year-old”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.