CHARLES BLACKMAN

The art of Charles Blackman creates a dream-like world of fact and fantasy intertwined, of childhood memories carried into the present, of beauty and blindness, all expressed through the evocative delineation of the human figure. His Alice in Wonderland series captures the child's world of wonderment, paintings are peopled with flowers, white cats and beautiful gardens. There is much poetry in his work, the lyrical and the lurking of dark forces, the latter released in his nightmare paintings starring Kate Fitzpatrick after Henry Fuseli. A master of the isolated figure, his paintings of 1959-60 provide companionship in such works as Tryst, 1959 and Lovers, 1960 (Joseph Brown Collection, National Gallery of Victoria). The dark, anonymous figure in company with one more realised, is employed to explore communication and relationship through touch, mood determined by the colours used. This play of light and dark, black and white is an occasional leitmotif in Blackman's art; revisited in widely differing works as Wave Watchers at Surfers Paradise, 1967 and Siesta, 1969.

Siesta cleverly engages the viewer through its feeling of intimacy, a privileged moment, viewed from above, of the endearments of the slumbering couple. They lie in their own world halfway between sleep and wake, the delight of the siesta. In this image of privacy Blackman revisits earlier ideas through characteristic motifs. The blindness of his wife Barbara, the closed eyes of the figures, caused him to explore other means of communication, felt in their touch of hands, of bodily engagement. The bent knees refer to latent energy in wakefulness.¹ The frequent play on black and white, the contrasting figures and the stripes of the pillow in Siesta, suggest an inclination towards the pun, Blackman's name embracing not only two distinct cultures through skin type, but also hinting at extended metaphoric meanings.

1. St. John Moore, F., Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels, A Retrosopective Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1993, p. 96 - 'Only his bunched-up knees, held in strong arms, proclaim a coil of implicit energy.'