Peter Powditch

(born 1942)

Sun torso 100 1971

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney
The Reg Grundy AC OBE and Joy Chambers-Grundy Collection, acquired in 1989

Peter Powditch is one of a small cluster of artists who, in the last quarter of the 20th century, made figurative painting look contemporary and completely relevant. Often regarded as an Australian Pop artist, he is self-evidently figurative, uses modern materials and draws on the modern 'look' of the female form. And he employed a spray-painting technique which is unmistakably graphic and contemporary in its effect. But that's perhaps a somewhat easy stereotypical account. Rather than the garish in-your-face application of commercial symbols and popular iconography, Powditch is more discreet, elusive and thoughtful.

The 'Sun Torso' series were original, and local in subject matter, yet were far from being isolated from international developments. His subject is enclosed and framed as a compressed single figure – literally, a torso. The colours may vary little, be they pink, brown, or yellow – perhaps a case of a local and colloquial perception over international style. Powditch's mastery of half-tones, the absence of pouting lips and commercialised female narcissism, distinguishes him from those that played off the many manifestations of popular culture – new wave magazines, music and fashion. He is more beach culture and burnished skin than celebrity hype.

Nonetheless, we see Powditch's subtle debt to international Pop, both British and American. The geometric elements within the work successfully interleave abstract formalism with a deliberately underplayed eroticism.

Doug Hall