Howard Arkley

(1951-1999)

Leaves and Flowers, 1981

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Collection of the artist, Melbourne
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
Private collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Howard Arkley: Recent Works, Tolarno Gallery, Melbourne, 4 - 25 July 1981, cat. 10

Howard Arkley may have made his mark via his suburban exteriors and interiors, however he would have been unable to do so without his solid grounding in such abstract textural works from the early 1980s as Leaves and Flowers, 1981. That Arkley was a superlative abstractionist is beyond dispute. Although he has placed his organic detritus here within the format of a solid grid formation, the leaves and flowers of his subject zone seem to shift and shimmy on an autumn wind. It is as though here he has captured the chaos of nature through a mathematical prism. Movement is primary, the sense of swirling rhythm that captures the viewer's eye. Music was a primary source of inspiration to Arkley, especially the emergent punk movement, and it is safe to assume that the artist would have effectively 'danced' this work into being, his organic notes barely constrained by structure which could be read as a form of musical notation. Of key import here is Arkley's use of texture. Using his trademark spray technique, each of the 36 panels is marked via a different level of intensity, from the minimal to the baroque. The organic curvature breaks through and over the grid via the levels of intensity evoked to a point where one feels they may break free of the surface of the canvas altogether. While over the duration of his career Arkley would veer from abstraction to figuration (although he would claim a desire to return to abstraction shortly before his death) elements one spies in Leaves and Flowers would return again and again. Indeed we can see the genesis of aspects that trickle throughout 'Howard Arkley: The Home Show' (48th Venice Biennale, Australian Pavilion) in 1999 in such works as Light and Bright, 1994, and Indoors-Outdoors, 1994, where his suburban plant life maintains similar shapes. The same embryonic forms reappear as patterns on couches, the floral patterning on chairs and carpets. Indeed, we can see in the brilliant monochrome work of Leaves and Flowers the seeding of many of Arkley's ongoing motifs and techniques. It is, strictly speaking, neither an abstract nor a figurative work, but it is quintessential Arkley, a strange, alchemical mix of rigid formalism and chaotic mastery. Leaves and Flowers is a masterful early work where the organic meets the geometric in a magical combine.

Ashley Crawford