2000D07, 2000
TIM MAGUIRE
oil and digitally printed ink on canvas
130.0 x 130.0 cm
signed, dated and inscribed verso: Maguire '00 / 2000D07
Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
Private collection, Sydney
Tim Maguire is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
Caught in a moment of intimacy, Maguire's sensuous bloom is in the midst of dropping a single petal whilst the rest of the flower slowly follows. Upon seeing a magnified flower on canvas, one is immediately absorbed by its decorative features, beauty and the life that it embodies. In this work on offer, the flower has reached its zenith and now begins an inevitable demise. 'Maguire recognises that his large flower paintings can be baroque and grotesque, swamped by fleshiness, an overripe eroticism, even morbidity.'1
The magnification of his floral paintings, imagery originally based from 17th century Dutch still life paintings, intensifies the notion of mortality and the transience of beauty. Maguire's knack of featuring historical imagery with contemporary processes is a significant component in understanding his paintings as Tony Godfrey reflects ''when we look at a painting seriously we are trying to replicate the position and actions oft the painter, then to understand Maguire's painting is, at least, partly to imaginatively reconstruct his acts: selection and cropping of an image, splitting the image into three layers, then - working from the computer generated guides - the act of painting. First, perhaps, the yellow is applied with easy fluid gestures, then splattered with solvent; next comes the layer of magenta and again the solvent (the splattering done as calmly as the painting); lastly, there is the application of cyan and a final act of splattering.2
Maguire's successful and enduring career as a painter and printmaker was set off by receiving several art prizes such as the Dobell Prize in Painting in 1989 and the Moët & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship in 1993. Now acknowledged as a leading artist of his generation, his work is included in important Australian and international public collections including the National Gallery of Australia and all Australian state galleries.
1. Godfrey, T., 'Light, Skin and Beauty' in Murray Cree, L., (ed.), Tim Maguire, Piper Press, Sydney, 2007, p. 28
2. Ibid., p. 23
MARA SISON