Howard Arkley

EDUCATION COLLECTION NOTES
INVESTIGATING KEY ARTWORKS IN THE GALLERY www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/education

GALLERY

ART
N SW

HOWARD ARKLEY SUPERB + SOLID

HOWARD ARKLEY

AUSTRALIA 1951–99

SUPERB + SOLID 1998 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 200 x 300.6 cm Contemporary Collection Benefactors’ Program 1998 © Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne

Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection notes 2007 Howard Arkley Superb + solid

HOWARD ARKLEY
AUSTRALIA 1951–99

SUPERB + SOLID 1998 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 200 x 300.6 cm Contemporary Collection Benefactors’ Program 1998 © Estate of Howard Arkley. Licensed by Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne

Howard Arkley was born…show more content…
Beginning as an abstract painter in the 1970s, then a figurative painter in the 1980s, Howard Arkley reconciled these two tendencies in his distinctive take on the suburban motif. Arkley embraced it, when ‘serious’ designers ignored suburbia. He continued to collect out-of-register colour pages from outdated magazines, or lovingly ponder different ways of rendering woodgrain surfaces or rug designs with his reverberating optical and zinging air-brush. With his spray-gun technique Arkley developed different styles or motifs: iridescent grids of dots that seemed to look like a cross between old computer print-outs and disco lights. Arkley even painted these buzzing dots on a suburban Melbourne tram in 1980. During Arkley’s punk phase the artist developed a decorative graffiti style with a black graphic line that had a cover-the-earth intensity, and resembled a cartoon version of tattooing. (See Primitive, a monumental 1.5 x 5.6 metre work made in 1982). In his 1983 ‘Urban paintings’ exhibition, at Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne, he began his first domestic interior paintings (Suburban interior). The black sprayed line is replaced by luminescent colours, and Arkley evolves more sophisticated effects of shading and stencilling techniques. Sometimes real wallpaper was used. By 1987 and 1988 he focused on the external appearance of brick veneer (Suburban exterior). Starting off with preliminary rapidograph drawings – sourced…show more content…
Edgar, R. Spray: The work of Howard Arkley Craftsman House, Sydney 1997 • Gregory, J. Carnival in suburbia: The art of Howard Arkley, Cambridge University Press 2006 • McAuliffe, C. Art and suburbia, Craftsman House, Sydney 1996 • Preston, E. Not just a suburban boy, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney 2002 • AGNSW Education Kits Aspects of Australian Art Sydney, reprinted 2004 Exhibition Catalogues • Szeeman, H. Liveriero Lavelli, L. La Biennale di Venezia: 48a Esposizione internationale d’arte: Dapertutto = Aperto over all La Biennale di Venezia Marsilio 1999 • O’Connell, S (essay). Fabricated rooms AGNSW contemporary projects Art Gallery of New South Wales 1997 • Sayers, A. (essay) Howard Arkley Black + White 20 years, work on paper and canvas Tolarno Galleries 1995

For further resources, information and programs related to Howard Arkley and his work see also: Art Gallery of New South Wales collection search www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection • National Gallery of Victoria http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ • Case Study: Howard Arkley http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/secondary/ creativearts/assets/visualarts/pdf/vas6casestudies.pdf
Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection notes 2007 Howard Arkley Superb + solid

Acknowledgments Coordinated and written by George Alexander, Tristan Sharp, Leeanne Carr and Victoria Collings, Public Programs Department, with assistance from Annette Mauer, Intern, Museum Studies, University of Sydney. Produced by the