January, 1986

GEOFFREY PROUD
January, 1986
Oil on canvas
180 x 250 cm

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Artist Geoffrey Proud, title January 1986. January is an exuberant work that evokes the colour, light and life of a Sydney summer. It depicts a celebratory image of Sydney as a subtropical city where sailboats skid across the harbour and fruiting palms thrust their fronds towards a lollipop pink sky. January is generally the time for long… hot summer holidays when Australians lap up their leisure time. This painting evokes a sense of freedom and hedonistic pleasure that marks these times. There is a vitality and energy in the work which is constructed primarily through colour and also owes a stylistic debt to the Fauves such as Matisse and Duran. Like them, Proud has used colour in an arbitrary or non-literal way. The aqua blue harbour is daubed with golden yellow pinks and peaches, while the multicoloured palm froms painted in bold strokes of salmon, mauve and jade are unbounded by any outline at all. Diagonal lines of the leaves create a lively movement as they radiate out in all directions, bursting out of the frame. At the same time, they can also be viewed as abstract arrangements of shape and colour, enjoyable simply as juxtapositions of vibrant contrasting hues. Proud’s work has a naive quality with the luscious colours infusing it with a sense of beauty and absolute delight.