TAKING a short break during a sitting with former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, about seven years ago, is when Garry Anderson had a surreal feeling. He looked out the window from a treasury room and pondered how his life’s artistic journey had led to that point – such an important subject in such an historic place with lush green carpets on which he made certain to cover well before painting.
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The internationally acclaimed artist, who grew up in Ballarat, has never chased notoriety for his work. Mr Anderson has stayed true to the mantra ‘art for art’s sake’, and yet notoriety has repeatedly found him.
“The best way I can describe what I do is channelling what I feel,” Mr Anderson said. “Drawing is a constant to keep your skills up. You sketch, colour sketch before it gets to painting – if it even makes the cut. I never think of a painting being studied all over the world or being well-known.”
Mr Anderson’s The Pea Eater (also known as The Potato Eater) is billed as the most controversial work in Murdoch University’s collection and has been part of the university’s contemporary art history studies since 1996. The piece has sparked an ongoing educational debate into human experience that Mr Anderson said was not something he would have imagined in his “wildest dreams”.
Now, in a rare move, Mr Anderson is set to showcase key pieces from a career that has spanned 40 years. Never interested in the commercial art scene, Mr Anderson trusts the ethical art values of Michael Fox, an arts accountant and valuer, who is passionate about this exhibition.
Fox Galleries will feature a two-part survey exhibition, Pea Eaters and Venetians, in the Collingwood showroom from Saturday. Part one, based on Pea Eater, is concerned with interiors, portraits and the suburban existence.
Following in a month’s time will be part two, Venetians, a series of work that grew out of Mr Anderson’s suburban yard scenes. These paintings are looser and more contemporary in style but consistent with Mr Anderson’s social justice concerns.
Mr Anderson said an artist was never truly satisfied, which is what drives him, and he has enjoyed watching the evolution in his journey.
“It is interesting to look at a body of work and see the progression,” Mr Anderson said. “My latest work was very challenging because there’s always a real self-conscious element to showing it. You’re pushing boundaries on a personal level, too.”
Mr Anderson, now based in Altona, retains strong connections to his hometown where from a young age, he felt he wanted to contribute to the art world.
Proudly, Mr Anderson has always worked from life or memory. His studies in figurative sculpture taught him a scientific basis in anatomy and the light.
He finds it a wonderful gift to entertain and challenge himself in creating “an expression of a small life in a big world” with just a pencil and piece of paper.
