FABRICATION - The Frabjous Fabric Paintings Of Fane Flaws

Eastern Southland Gallery Feb 20th - March 29th 2009

Retrospective - 50 works - fabric paintings from 1995 - 2008

I grew up in a house with very little art. There were a couple of watercolours by R. H. Waghorn (my mother’s geography teacher), a brown etching of ‘Anne Hathaway’s Cottage’ (a family heirloom), and little else I remember.
As a child in the 1950’s, four things took my fancy; my grandparents’ ‘Art Deco’ lounge suite, my father’s immaculately rendered workshop shadow-board and the numerous patterned curtains and wallpapers at home.
My grandfather worked in a fabric warehouse so there were always new bolts of woven magic appearing, most of them seconds but always the latest imported designs. These strongly graphic selections were the first hints of a world of art and design I would come to discover and love, and like most childhood attractions had a lasting effect on me.
The shadow-board in particular, a beautiful hand-painted artwork, has manifested it’s power in my recent work and the patterned fabrics of the 40’s, 50’s & 60’s have always held a fascination for me.
I began collecting old curtains that took my fancy about 1981when after thirteen years on the road playing music, we began setting up a home. Eventually I ended up with a trunkful.
Sometime in the mid nineties, it occurred to me that I always began a painting with a blank canvas so I decided to experiment by starting with a full one. I glued some of my favourite old curtain material to a stretched canvas and painted into it. The result was so pleasing that I have continued the practice off and on for the last thirteen years.
The ‘FABRICATIONS’ (things constructed or manufactured from prepared components, inventions or concoctions, forgeries) are inherently invented, spontaneously drawn straight onto the fabric with charcoal and driven by the random pattern produced by the particular segment of fabric that ends up in the frame. They require a way of working that liberates me from my usual method of expanding on drawings or preconceived ideas. They are largely intuitive works, free of intellectual constraint, smattered with cubist flim-flam and defined by the level of the original material left visible - meaningless musings, which somehow manage to tell their own story. It is a satisfying and frabjous process, which lures me back time and again.

Fane Flaws Feb 2009

Diptiki diptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 455 x 615 mm

 

One Eyed Ju-Ju (oil on fabric on canvas) 460 x 300 mm

 

The Three Amigos triptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 750 mm

 

Yellow Tiki With Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) 555 x 765 mm

 

Tennyseean (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm

Les Paul (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm

Telecaster (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm

Stratocaster (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm

Pacific Threesome (oil on fabric on canvas) 1200 x 850 mm

 

The Happy Couple diptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 615 mm

 

Happy Couple #2 (oil on fabric on canvas) 205 x 405 mm

 

Happy Couple #3 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm

 

Happy Couple #4 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm

 

Happy Couple #5 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm

 

Happy Couple #6 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm

 

Happy Couple #7 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm

 

Happy Couple #8 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510

 

Happy Couple #9 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510

 

Happy Threesome (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510

 

The Very Happy Couple (oil on fabric on canvas) 200 x 250 mm

Dancing Fool (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 200 mm

Tiki For Gazza (oil on fabric on canvas) 270 x 200 mm

The Girl From Godknowswhere (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm

Ju-Ju Man (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm

Ship Girl (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm

The Academic (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm

Bogey Man (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm

Fear of the Machine Age (oil on fabric on canvas) 765 x 380 mm

Tiki for Len (oil on fabric on canvas) 750 x 360 mm

Love Totem #1 (oil on fabric on canvas) 605 x 455 mm

 

Apolitical Tiki for Dick (oil on fabric on canvas) 340 x 250 mm

Happy Clown (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 255 mm

Pointy Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm

Millenium Surfer (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm

Waka Jawaka (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 275 mm

Cross-eyed Wife (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm

Sonia (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

Spaniard In The Works (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

TinTits (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

Ghost Who Walks (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

Pope Colin (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

Why Am I here? (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm

The Yeilding Of The Blue Dong Nama (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 250 mm

Blue Dugong Spirit (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 250 mm

Yellow Clown (oil on fabric on canvas) 407 x 230 mm

Red Queen (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 270 mm

The Missing Tenor (oil on fabric on canvas) 760 x 760 mm

 

Atomic Structure (oil on fabric on canvas) 1220 x 915 mm

 

Jungle Bunny (oil on fabric on canvas) 1220 x 915 mm

 

It's a Letterbox (oil & shellac on fabric on canvas) 500 x 350 mm

 

Still Life with Birds (oil & acrylic on fabric on board) 600 x 400 mm

IDiot-Bastard-Self (oil on fabric on canvas) 510 x 255 mm

Batik Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) - 300 x 230 mm

Six Legged Totem (oil on fabric on canvas) - 230 x 300 mm

The Three Amigos (limited edition silk-screen print 50) 550 x 770 mm

 

IDiot-Bastard-Self (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm

 

The Missing Tenor (limited edition intron print 30) 300 x 420 mm

 

Tiki For Len (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm

 

Yellow Tiki With Bird (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm