John Coburn

(1925-2006)

Central Desert Painting, 1992

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Australian Galleries, Melbourne & Sydney (label attached verso)
Private collection
Eva Breuer Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Melbourne

EXHIBITED
John Coburn, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 12 November - 12 December 1992, cat. 3
John Coburn: Recent Paintings, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 20 September - 16 October 1993, cat. 3

'In July of 1987, Coburn traveled for three weeks to far north Queensland, the Northern Territory and central Australia, which "proved to be a most important journey". Here he gathered a plethora of imagery that would inform his later works. He experienced the expansiveness of the Australian outback and the intensity of colour, in particular the reds and ochres, that he first encountered whilst growing up in western Queensland. Red, he says, is his favourite colour.

'Coburn's late period of paintings represent a culmination of his life's work. No longer influenced by artists such as Picasso, Miro and Rothko, these works are unique in style reflecting his own voice and sense of place.

'These works deal almost exclusively with the landscapes of the central desert. Through refined symbolic shapes, he depicts abstracted rock formations, clouds, moon, sun, birds, and the great expanse of the land. His interest in aboriginal art is reflected in an almost spiritual identification with the land. The forms he depicts have weight and represent a reverence for the ancient landscape.

"The endless space, the great monotonous distances, the overpowering features such as Uluru, and the great age of the continent inspired a series of paintings whose titles reveal that Coburn was establishing a symbolic rapport with the landscape, not dissimilar in attitude to that of traditional Aboriginal Art"'1

We gratefully acknowledge the kind assistance of Caroline Purves in cataloguing this work.

1. Katherine Rosenthal, 'Central Desert Paintings', Coburn: Paintings, Works on Paper and Graphics, Eva Bruer Art Dealer, Sydney, exh. cat., May 2005, p. 18