DICK WATKINS

The works in this exhibition reinforce Watkins as one of Australia’s master painters. It is an act of sheer delight to stand in front of his paintings and let one’s eyes wander over the canvas, following the movement of brush and paint across the surface or losing oneself in the forms and colours of his virtuosic compositions. Such delicacy and grace appear so simple to achieve, yet at the same time we know it is a rather more complex process. One cannot but admire what we observe here, which is Watkins making subtle assertions out of the rather sophisticated knowledge and understanding he has of his medium: paint and canvas. Far from Patrick White’s artist, Hurtle Duffield, in The Vivisector, Watkins has evidently “… mastered the razor-edge where simplicity unites with subtlety”.

But this is not to suggest Watkins is a mere formalist. Experimental in technique and displaying complete confidence across a variety of styles, from abstract expressionism to figuration, Watkins has continued to produce highly accomplished works in an eclectic manner through the latter half of one century and into the next. While referencing material such as literature, cinema and daily life as well as historical and contemporary art – citing influences such as cubism, Picasso and the American abstract expressionists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and Willem De Kooning – each work is unique in its sense of timelessness.

Quoted often as stating that colour provides the main emphasis in his work, he feels this is most relevant in relation to his earlier career, particularly during his association with Australian colour-field painting. For this he is considered as one of “Two artists…of special importance for its appearance...” in 1963, the year of his first solo exhibition which comprised “…probably the first hard-edge paintings to be exhibited by an Australian artist in Australia”. And later, through his association with Sydney’s hard-edge avant-garde at Central Street Gallery (1966–1970), he is sited as “… the only local influence of significance” amongst international influences such as Kenneth Noland, Josef Albers and Frank Stella. In 1968 he was featured in The Field, a review of Australian colour-field painting held at the National Gallery of Victoria’s new St Kilda Road premises and considered one of Australia’s seminal exhibitions of contemporary art.

Though he was experimenting with other styles before and at that time, perhaps this period provided the basis of his superb use of colour which, though present in all works in this exhibition, is easily apparent in the simplicity and strength of the work titled Lillie Langtry 2004. At the same time, he cites ‘structure’ as being of equal importance to colour for a work to succeed and this is now where he is focussed, often drawing sketches of ideas as he gets them where once he would approach a blank canvas and spontaneously compose a work from the first mark.

Either way, it is clear that he is equally proficient in all aspects of constructing a work, and in almost any style one cares to imagine: with form and composition, as in the minimally enigmatic Zetland tram 2006; with figuration, as both Family 2004 and The mirror 2005 demonstrate; with gesture, spontaneity and a kind of lyrical abstraction in works as diverse as King Kong on a bicycle 2005 and Slim’s jam 2006; and with landscape, as in A landscape variation on Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles 2004. And as he continues experimenting and extending an already marvellous career, it has to make Watkins one of Australia’s most interesting and refreshing established artists.