Phil Brown

Phil Brown - Art Column

Poet in paint

At 87, John Olsen continues to create like his life depends on it

It’s not surprising that a conversation with artist John Olsen quickly turns to poetry. I happen to be very interested in poetry and I must confess to steering the conversation that way from the outset. But what else does one talk about in front of a painting entitled The Poet’s Garden?

This is among stunning works in a show at Philip Bacon Galleries by an artist whom many love and revere as Australia’s greatest living painter.

Poetry is, John agrees, closely related to painting. Lines from T.S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas trip off his tongue and when I wonder aloud whether, by any
chance, Thomas’s poem The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower in any way influenced him, he proves that it did by reciting the opening lines by way of confirmation.

John has known his fair share of poets including the late great Irish bard Seamus Heaney. He also knew Kenneth Slessor, the Australian poet whose poem inspired one of John’s most famous works, a mural entitled Salute to Five Bells. The mural, at the Sydney Opera House, is a meditation on time and
death and, importantly, Sydney Harbour.

John grew up around the harbour and he loves the water. In this show The Rolling Sea is an example of a work that is a hymn to the sea.

“I want anyone who looks at this painting to feel that rolling sea,” John says as I go a little green around the gills. It’s so effective that I feel a little seasick, I explain, and he laughs.

He loves the landscape too and along with painters such as Fred Williams, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and William Robinson, John is a such as Murrumbidgee Hills and Lake Eyre. At 87, John shows little sign of slowing down and he declares that he will never retire. That would be a living death, he says.

Art and life are synonymous for the beretwearing octogenarian and his public loves him for that. As we chat, gallery-goers trickle in and their eyes light up when they see the artist is in situ. Photos are snapped, hands shaken, expressions of admiration are expounded. There’s a lot of love in the room.

Olsen fans will be happy to see that he is still playing to the punters too because there are a few of his beloved frog paintings in the show including the almost ethereal Willows and frogs.

The frog paintings are a famous part of his oeuvre, inspired by a trip into the North Queensland rainforests. John was doing graphics for an ABC television program at the time.

“People just went crazy about those bloody frogs,” he says with a certain amount of delight. “It’s a subject that stayed with me and I don’t mind doing them. But of course that’s OK as long as I am doing something a little different each time.” It’s not a production line by any means but John is chuffed that people love his frogs so much and he’s not about to let his public down.

This is the sort of exhibition you would expect to see in a leading art museum rather than a commercial gallery and it is John’s first outing in Brisbane in 20 years, which makes it special. The difference between the gallery and a museum is, of course, that the works are for sale. They range between $65,000 and $400,000 in case you’re interested. Price isn’t everything but it’s a measure of how valued John is. But as well as being valued he is treasured and that may be more important.

JOHN OLSEN, until Aug 22, Tue-Sat, 10am-5pm, Philip
Bacon Galleries, 2 Arthur St, Fortitude Valley,
ph: 3358 3555. philipbacongalleries.com.au