
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 |
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Diptiki diptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 455 x 615 mm
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One Eyed Ju-Ju (oil on fabric on canvas) 460 x 300 mm
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The Three Amigos triptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 750 mm
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Yellow Tiki With Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) 555 x 765 mm
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Tennyseean (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm
Les Paul (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm |
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Telecaster (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm
Stratocaster (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 280 mm |
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Pacific Threesome (oil on fabric on canvas) 1200 x 850 mm
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The Happy Couple diptych (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 615 mm
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Happy Couple #2 (oil on fabric on canvas) 205 x 405 mm
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Happy Couple #3 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm
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Happy Couple #4 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm
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Happy Couple #5 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm
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Happy Couple #6 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm
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Happy Couple #7 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510 mm
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Happy Couple #8 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510
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Happy Couple #9 (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510
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Happy Threesome (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 510
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The Very Happy Couple (oil on fabric on canvas) 200 x 250 mm
Dancing Fool (oil on fabric on canvas) 250 x 200 mm |
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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 |
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Ju-Ju Man (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm
Ship Girl (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm |
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The Academic (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm
Bogey Man (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 280 mm |
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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 |
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Love Totem #1 (oil on fabric on canvas) 605 x 455 mm
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Apolitical Tiki for Dick (oil on fabric on canvas) 340 x 250 mm
Happy Clown (oil on fabric on canvas) 350 x 255 mm |
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Pointy Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm
Millenium Surfer (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm |
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Waka Jawaka (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 275 mm
Cross-eyed Wife (oil on fabric on canvas) 405 x 300 mm |
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Sonia (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm
Spaniard In The Works (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm |
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TinTits (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm
Ghost Who Walks (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm |
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Pope Colin (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm
Why Am I here? (oil on fabric on canvas) 300 x 230 mm |
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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 |
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Yellow Clown (oil on fabric on canvas) 407 x 230 mm
Red Queen (oil on fabric on canvas) 355 x 270 mm |
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The Missing Tenor (oil on fabric on canvas) 760 x 760 mm
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Atomic Structure (oil on fabric on canvas) 1220 x 915 mm
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Jungle Bunny (oil on fabric on canvas) 1220 x 915 mm
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It's a Letterbox (oil & shellac on fabric on canvas) 500 x 350 mm
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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 |
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Batik Bird (oil on fabric on canvas) - 300 x 230 mm
Six Legged Totem (oil on fabric on canvas) - 230 x 300 mm |
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The Three Amigos (limited edition silk-screen print 50) 550 x 770 mm
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IDiot-Bastard-Self (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm
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The Missing Tenor (limited edition intron print 30) 300 x 420 mm
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Tiki For Len (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm
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Yellow Tiki With Bird (limited edition intron print 30) 420 x 300 mm
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