Pasquale Giardino (born 1961)
Nude
pastel
74 x 54 cm
signed lower centre: Pasquale

Inspired by Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' Pasquale Giardino has similarly used angular and disjointed body shapes to create vitality.

Giardino is known as one of the founding members of the ROAR collective formed in Fitzroy, 1982. Drawing upon a source of inspiration that is naive and expressive, Giardino's work has an honesty about it. This nude is how he sees a nude female. Where we as adults would stop our childish drawing and take on responsibility, Giardino kept going and without hesitation celebrates innocent curiosity. This is not how a child might see a female nude, but how an uninhibited mind sees the nude female.

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John Coburn (1925 - 2006)
Sentinel, 1987
screenprint, 4 colours
edition: 51 of 100
90 x 60 cm
signed and inscribed in margin: 51/100 / Sentinel / Coburn '87

This John Coburn screenprint titled 'Sentinel' has a presence about it. Standing tall at 90 cm in height we are first struck by a dark organic form cropped at its base. This very Coburn like form is then back-dropped by a rich blue and a small golden disk to one side. Ultramarine blue was once the most prized pigment during the European Middle Ages. In modern twentieth century however this color reminds us of the cool International 'Yves' Klein Blue. Has Coburn presented us with a sky blue and golden sun disc? Or does this work demand more of a modernist reading and should be interpreted in more pure abstract terms?

A 'Sentinel' is simply a guard - a person (or thing) that watches or stands as if watching. Within Coburn's dark organic form is an even darker ellipse - shaped almost like an eye. Could this mysterious large form be the Sentinel, standing guard, protecting and watching over us?

I believe this work sits some where between abstract and figurative. Its colours are rich and carefully considered, it's forms and composition dynamically chosen. The title of 'Sentinel' however sets off the imagination and enables use to see it as a bodyguard.

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Sam Leach (born 1973)
Marmoset 2008
oil & resin on board
36.0 x 26.0 cm
Inscribed verso: Sam Leach
/ MARMOSET 08

'Marmoset' is an exquisite example of Sam Leach's celebrated style of copying 17th century Dutch painting within corporate business interiors. Winner of the current 2010 Archibald and Wynne Prizes, this work highlights his consistency to draw upon this painting tradition. Qualities such as the finest detail, ivory black interior, subtly of brush marks, all with a generous high gloss finish are iconic of Leach's work. The marmoset, which is a small monkey found in parts of South and Central America, is listed as an endangered species. This rare monkey, taken out of its habitat, leans against a geometric like form. Posited, as though about to speak, he implores mankind to save his threatened species.

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Anthony Lister (born 1980)
She Loves it Here on Video TV-Hits, 2006
mixed media on canvas
120 x 120 cm
Inscribed verso: She Loves it Here on
Video TV-Hits / 2006 / Lister

"She Loves it Here on Video TV-Hits" is a fabulous example of Brisbane born artist Anthony Lister bringing his controversial lifestyle to canvas. Known for a string of misdemeanors and criminal offenses in his new home town of New York, this work resonates with street life symbols. We are first struck by a pointed pistol. Across the center then asked to solve a pictograph. Two hip girls stand next to a hyphenated MEN in capital letters - these are WO-MEN, protected by a red faced dog. We maybe lured by the street sign glamour, but it's a dangerous world. Lister has been quoted saying that "Australians are raised by Americans on TV" and that "TV is the contemporary mode of meditation". In this painting Lister plays out our TV fantasies, of guns, women and crime so often found in popular culture. Yet to read about his life this work could easily be a self-portrait.

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