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J O H N F I R T H - S M I T H

F U L L C I R C L E

T O B E O P E N E D B Y R O B E R T L I N D S A Y

4 T O 6 P M , S A T U R D A Y 2 9 A P R I L 2 0 1 7

E X H I B I T I O N C U R R E N T 2 9 A P R I L T O 2 1 M A Y 2 0 1 7

Trap 2015 mixed media on cot ton 70 x 50 cm +61 3 9415 7882 155 LANGRIDGE ST COLLINGWOOD VIC 3066 nicholasthompsongallery.com.au

N I C H O L A S T H O M P S O N G A L L E R Y

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Fu l l C i rc le - Sweeping the Pas t 2016 mixed media on l inen and cot ton ( t r iptyc h) 152.5 x 244 cm

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T H E S O N G O F T H E M A D P R I N C E

W h o s a i d . “ P e a c o c k P i e ” ?

T h e o l d K i n g t o t h e S p a r r ow :

W h o s a i d , “ C r o p s a r e r i p e ” ?

R u s t t o t h e h a r r ow :

W h o s a i d . “ W h e r e s l e e p s s h e n ow ?

W h e r e r e s t s s h e n ow h e r h e a d ,

B a t h e d i n e v e ’s l o v e l i n e s s ” ?

T h a t ’s w h a t I s a i d .

W h o s a i d , “A y, m u m ’s t h e w o r d ” ?

S e x t o n t o w i l l ow :

W h o s a i d , “A l l T i m e ’s d e l i g h t

H a t h s h e f o r n a r r ow b e d :

L i f e ’s t r o u b l e d b u b b l e b r o k e n ” ?

T h a t ’s w h a t I s a i d .

Wa l t e r d e l a M a r e , 1 9 1 3

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Fu l l C i rc le - A Pa tch of Green 2016 mixed media on l inen and cot ton 152.5 x 304 cm

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Left : Rura l Rus t (Ser ies 1) 2015 mixed media on cot ton (detai l ) 61 x 30.5 cm

Oppos i te : Menindee Lake 2009 oi l on l inen 182 x 274 cm

C O M E B Y C H A N C E

I have been l iv ing and work ing in the Central West of NSW for some years

- an area that was once swarming wi th gold fever - long gone towns wi th

names l ike Come by Chance, Home Ru le, Yetho lm, Lucknow, Ophir and others .

These places now only exis t in memory or rare o ld glass p late photos - they

have evaporated in to t ime and i t i s hard to bel ieve they ever exis ted. Vis i t ing

these local i t ies and wander ing around where the bush has rec la imed the land

you discover ev idence of these once thr iv ing towns. Al ignments of s tumps for

foundat ions, r us ty i ron , shards and objects, c i rcu lar co i l s of r us ty barbed wire,

odd br ic ks and the remains of f i replaces and o ld an imal sku l l s and cemeter ies

in the middle of nowhere. I t i s not about nos ta lg ia but more about cur ios i ty,

d i scovery and fasc inat ion . When I p ic k up an o ld r us ty h inge or horseshoe that

has been ly ing on the ground for years I f ind the embossed impr in t i t leaves on

the ground equal ly as in teres t ing as the object I ho ld . Al l these assoc iat ions I

take to the s tudio and mix i t up wi th ideas and paint .

J o h n F i r t h - S m i t h , H i l l E n d , 2 0 1 7

A r t t h a t s p e a k s t o a n y o f u s a l w a y s c o m e s f r o m a v e r y p a r t i c u l a r

p l a c e a n d t h e n w e f i n d o u r s e l v e s i n i t i n s o m e k i n d o f w a y .

E l i z a b e t h A l e x a n d e r T h e L i g h t o f t h e W o r l d : A M e m o i r, 2 0 1 5

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Oppos i te : Found - The L i t t le B lue Book of Ru les 2016 mixed media on cot ton 122 x 91.5 cm

F U L L C I R C L E

The sum of the distances of any point on an ellipse from two fixed points remains constant no matter where the point is on the curve.

The ellipse, like the circle and the square, possesses a mystical centrifugal energy. Arced like a cathedral apse or the swollen prow of a vessel, this form is important in the work of John Firth-Smith. In several of his major painting series the ellipse served as a central motif. Formally he used it as a direct interrogation of the square. Compositionally it punched a hole through dimensions like a lens or a porthole. But thematically the ellipse both traverses and hooks back into time. The new work generated in the Hill End studio of John Firth-Smith takes the concepts of a retrospective vision and expands them into an allegory. In this context the artist’s symbols, palette and idiosyncratic markings are all framed by the span of experience. Aware that his work bridges two centuries, Firth-Smith is keen to assert that the very bedrock of his own lexicon dwells in the century before. By his use of “Victorian imperial measure”. In his cherishing of hook, shovel and scythe. Firth-Smith’s working process remains inspired by many aspects of early and even pre-industrialisation because the very core of his first paintings came from a haptic engagement with an urban, rural and coastal environment rich with relics. Relics of a (then) accessible but swiftly outdated past. Art in Australia in the late 50s and very early 60s was isolated in a way that led to vernacular invention:

“You have to understand the rarity of abstraction. Nothing contemporary hung in the AGNSW, international art magazines were hen’s teeth and the language of painting was stuck in landscape on every level. To explore for me had to be a physical engagement. My earliest works used the pillaged abandoned buildings I found all over Sydney as a formalist basis. My engagement with the square was not an intellectual exercise (like Mondrian) but instead the physical act of looking down on the broken floor plans and foundations of buildings in decay. Or occupying the frame of a miner’s cottage door. Sydney and the bush at that time was full of derelict buildings and the objects I found within them continue to sustain the objects that enter the picture frame now: lost tools, an open book, the broken window, the fruits of the forage.”

Firth-Smith’s process of traversing the landscape and entering its structures or tracing the ghosts of where towns and buildings once stood echoes within the continual use of veils, stains and underpinnings in his paintings. Though the works he is best known for navigated an industrial, maritime and coastal palette, his ‘inland’ paintings dig into fifty years of non-objective rambling.

Full Circle, as a spectacle, presents a bold compression of tropes. Found - The Little Blue Book of Rules, effectively explodes the austerity of minimalism and the nostalgia of expressionism by ripping into the guts of both. And here is a skeleton key to all of the forms that compelled this artist within a lifetime of painting: the square, the drip, sacred geometry and the broken working parts of antiquated technologies. Following his own coiling rope lines and rusted hooks he openly quotes his own work, uniting the contradictions with a palette that is erotic and limpid.

The body had never really entered his work before though it was always there, in the human proportion of his hand span and the full height of his painted gestures. In these works the body stands inside the artist’s collection of forms, a sheer vertical, deliberately faceless and obscure, more monolith than portrait. The spirit of experimentation within this work interlocks with a palpable ache of memory. In conversation Firth-Smith often speaks of the towns on the road to Hill End that are now just place names. Names that sound like the titles for paintings: Lucknow, Come by Chance. And these markers serve his ideas well. They seem so apt to a broad and restless nature with a curious eye. Bearing witness is not the same as simply recording. If history is the snake that sheds it skin as it eats it own tail then the ellipse never closes. Post colonial Australia churns on in a constant state of erasure. But here are the remnants. Here is the broken compass and here is the map. A guide to terrains that have long eroded or are yet to be built.

A n n a J o h n s o n , 2 0 1 7

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PA R T I C I PA T I O N T R O P H Y

S o m e t i m e s I f e e l l i k e a p a r t i c i p a t i o n t r o p h y .

C o n g r a t s , y o u d i d i t .

H e r e ’s t o c o m m e m o r a t e y o u r d e d i c a t i o n

N ow g o o d b y e , g o d o s o m e t h i n g b e t t e r w i t h y o u r t i m e

E a r n s o m e t h i n g y o u ’ r e n o t a f r a i d t o s h ow o f f

T h a t ’s w o r t h m o r e t h a n t h i s f i v e c e n t s o f p l a s t i c

U n l e s s , o f c o u r s e , y o u ’ r e n o t g o o d a t a n y t h i n g

I n w h i c h c a s e l o o k , e v e r y o n e , a t m y t r o p h y .

I p a r t i c i p a t e d i n s o m e t h i n g

T h a t t o o k m o r e e f f o r t t h a t e a t i n g f o o d o r b r e a t h i n g

I s h ow e d u p s o m e t i m e s

A n d d i d s o m e s t u f f

A n d I g o t t h i s t r o p h y I c a n p u t o n m y t o p s h e l f

S o e v e r y o n e c a n s e e i t ’s a t r o p h y

B u t n o o n e k n ow s I b a r e l y e a r n e d i t .

N o t t h a t a n y o n e c a r e s a n y w a y

K a s e y S h o r e s , 2 0 1 6

Right : Trophy No 2 - Eye on the Pr ize 2012 oi l on l inen 91. 5 x 61 cm

Oppos i te : Trophy ser ies paint ings and tableaux

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A r t r e p l a c e s t h e l i g h t t h a t i s l o s t w h e n

t h e d a y f a d e s , t h e m o m e n t p a s s e s , t h e

e v a n e s c e n t e x t r a o r d i n a r y m a k e s i t s

q u i c k s i l v e r . A r t t r i e s t o c a p t u r e t h a t

w h i c h w e k n ow l e a v e s u s , a s w e m o v e i n

a n d o u t o f e a c h o t h e r ’s l i v e s , a s w e a l l

m u s t e v e n t u a l l y l e a v e t h i s e a r t h .

G r e a t a r t i s t s k n ow t h a t s h a d ow, w o r k

a l w a y s a g a i n s t t h e d y i n g l i g h t , b u t

a l w a y s k n ow i n g t h a t t h e d a y b r i n g s n e w

l i g h t a n d t h a t t h e o c e a n w h i c h w a s h e s

a w a y a l l t r a c e s o n t h e s a n d l e a v e s u s a

n e w c a n v a s w i t h e a c h w a v e .

E l i z a b e t h A l e x a n d e r

T h e L i g h t o f t h e W o r l d : A M e m o i r, 2 0 1 5

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Right: Divided Time #2 2016 mixed media on cotton two canvases 152 x 121 cm

Opposite: Divided Time 2016 mixed media on cotton two canvases 152 x 121 cm

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1943 Born Melbourne, VIC, Australia 1987-96 Trustee, Art Gallery of New South Wales

EDUCATION1961 National Art School, Sydney1983 Artist in Residence, Melbourne University 1991Tutor, International Art Workshop, Omaru, New Zealand

SOLO EXHIBITIONS2017 Rural Rust King Street Gallery, Sydney 2012, 2009, 2005, 2003, 2001 Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney2009 Paintings and Ceramics, John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne 2007 Selected Works, John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne 2006 Nevill Keating Contemporary, London2006 The New York Works (survey), Australian Embassy, Washington DC 2002 Lister Calder Gallery, Western Australia2002 Metro 5 Gallery, Melbourne 1999 A Voyage that Never Ends (exhibition and book launch) Roslyn OxIey9 Gallery, Sydney 1998, 1996, 1994, 1993 Roslyn OxIey9 Gallery, Sydney 1994 Robert Lindsay Gallery, Melbourne 1994 Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide 1992 Work on Paper: 1982-1992, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 1990, 1988 Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 1990 New Lithographs, Australian Galleries, Melbourne1987 Gallery 52, Perth 1987 In and On (lithographs), Blaxland Gallery, Sydney 1986 Powell St Gallery, Melbourne 1984 Inspiration and Reality, University of Melbourne1983 Gallery 52, Perth, Western Australia 1983 Bottle & Boat (lithographs), Roslyn OxIey9 Gallery, Sydney 1982 Works from New York, Axion Gallery, Melbourne 1982 Works from New York, Gallery A, Sydney 1981 & 1978 Bonython Art Gallery, Adelaide 1979 Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne 1983, 1977 & 1976 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane 1976 Realities Gallery, Melbourne 1981, 1979, 1977, 1975, 1973, 1972 & 1970 Gallery A, Sydney 1969 & 1966 Gallery A, Sydney and Melbourne

GROUP EXHIBITIONS2015 Opening Exhibition, Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne 2007 Harbourlife, Manly Art Gallery & Museum 2006 Stolen Ritual, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney2005 Fireworks, Mackay Artspace touring exhibition, NSW, QLD, VIC2005 Landscape Now, Solander Gallery, Canberra2005 Hill End Scenes, People or Objects, Inaugural Exhibition, NPWS Gallery, Hill End

2004 Spectrum 2004, FONAS, National Art School, Sydney 2003 The Year in Art, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney 2003 Australian Masters, Solander Gallery, Canberra 2003 Beneath the Monsoon, Touring Regional Galleries, Queensland 2002 Fifty Years of Abstraction, Metro 5 Gallery, Melbourne 2002 Points of View, University of Technology Sydney Art Collection, Sydney 2002 The First 20 Years, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 2001 MCA Unpacked, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney1999 Silver, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney 1999 Fabric of Labour, BulIe Gallery, Melbourne1999 Three Generations, Solander Gallery, Canberra1998 Escape Artists: Modernists in the Tropics, Cairns Regional Gallery & travelling QLD, NSW, VIC 1998 Axia Modern Art Opening Exhibition, Melbourne1998 Australian Printmaking in the 1990’s: Artist printmakers 1990-95, Sherman Galleries, Sydney 1997 Swingtime Eastcoast – Westcoast: Works from the I960s-70s, University of WA1995 The Artists of Hill End, Art Gallery of New South Wales & travelling New South Wales 1995 Asia and Oceania Influence, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Kuala Lumpur 1995 Selection of Australian Works, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 1994 Modern Australian Paintings, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1992 Australian Masters, Solander Gallery, Canberra Works on Paper, R.M.I.T., Melbourne 1992 Synthesis 6: Art & Architecture (with Lawrence Neild), Sydney 1988 1992 Australian Masters, Solander Gallery, Canberra 1987 Surface for Reflection, Art Gallery of New South Wales & travelling1987 Australian Painters & Sculptors, Saitama, Japan Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane1986 A Resistant Spirit, Roslyn OxIey9 Gallery, Sydney & Realities Gallery, Melbourne1984 New Work, Powell Street Gallery1983 Perspecta 83, Art Gallery of New South Wales1983 Abstract Art in Australia, R.M.I.T. Gallery, Melbourne1983 Five Sydney Painters, The Wrong Place, University of Tasmania Art Gallery, Hobart 1983 Twelve Australian Painters, Art Gallery of Western Australia1982 Sydney Harbour Bridge 1932-1982, Art Gallery of New South Wales 1982 Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York – with Lesley Dumbrell invited 1982 Structures, Newcastle Region Art Gallery1982 Invited Inaugural Singleton Art Prize, Anzas 82, Macquarie University, NSW

1982 Darwin Art Gallery, works executed at Artists Camp, Kakadu National Park Northern Territory 1982 Landscape Now, Solander Gallery, Canberra ACT 1981 LIS `81, International Exhibition of Drawings, Lisbon Portugal, Survey 16 National Gallery of VIC1981 Survey of the Seventies, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria 1980 Summer Exhibition, Gallery A, Sydney 1979 LIS `79, International Exhibition of Drawings, Lisbon & Opporto, Portugal1978 Contemporary Australian Art to Indonesia – Landscape and Image 1978 Water Works, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney 1977 Group Show, Gallery A, Sydney 1977 Australian Colourists `77, Western Australian Institute of Technology, Perth 1976 Included Artists Films, touring Europe and USA1975 Joint exhibition with Tony Tuckson, Monash University, Melbourne1975 Ten Australians, Gallery A, Sydney 1975 The Ocean, Expo `75, Okinawa, Japan 1974 Included Artists Films, Art Gallery of New South Wales 1974 Return to Sender, Florence, Italy1973 Invited Biennale de Paris, France 1973 Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, New Zealand The Biennale of Sydney’ Opera House 1972 Included in Twenty Years of Australian Painting, London, UK Group1970 Invited First Leasing Prize, Melbourne1970 Invited Georges Prize, Melbourne 1969 Japanese Forum Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan 1968 Group 2, Gallery A, Sydney and Melbourne1967 New Generation Sydney, Gallery A, Melbourne1966 Invited Helena Rubenstein Travelling Scholarship, Survey 6, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney 1966 Australian Young Contemporaries’ exhibition, Perth 1965 Survey 5, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney 1964 Survey 4, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney 1963 Joint Exhibition with Ian Van Wieringen, Hungry Horse Gallery, Sydney 1962 Joint exhibition with Ian Van Wieringen, Clune Galleries, Sydney

John Firth-Smith is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, all Australian state galleries; regional and tertiary collections and significant Australian and international corporate and private collections. He is the recipient of several awards including the Sydney Morning Herald Art Prize (1978) and the McCaughey Memorial Prize (1975). John Firth-Smith has completed significant public and corporate commissions throughout Australia since 1980.

For a full CV including extensive print and film bibliography contact the gallery.

JOHN F IRTH-SMITH

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Above: Hi l l End Studio, 2017 wi th s ix of Ta l i sman Ser ies 2015

Front Cover : Sa l t Wa ter - Sa l t A i r 2016 mixed media on cot ton and l inen 182 x 213 cm

Back Cover : Ta l i sman No. 6 2015 mixed media on cot ton 71 x 35.5 cm