Ep 57: Joe Furlonger

Joe Furlonger is one of  Australia’s most respected painters, with his work crossing landscape, figures and portraiture.

He’s probably best known for a particular kind of landscape which he returns to time and time again. He paints those flat areas of the Australian farmlands and bush, the places where at first glance there doesn’t seem to be much going on, where the horizon seems to stretch out forever. Places like Moree and the Darling Downs.  But he always seems to find a way to interpret those spaces which injects an excitement into the image and that invariably involves multiple layers of paint energetically applied.

Furlonger’s not concerned with traditional rules of landscape painting or the restrictions of gaining an exact likeness in portraiture. His methods appear to be instinctive in one sense but, on the other hand, also drawn from keen observation. What emerged from talking with him, though, was his constant struggle to avoid stagnation and his desire to always be looking for a new approach until even that method is exhausted and it’s time to move on.

He’s a multi award winning artist and has had 35 solo shows. His work is held in the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria and the Art Gallery of NSW as well as many other public and private collections.

We recorded this conversation when his work was hanging in Defiance Gallery’s show  ‘Six Artists | Seven Days’ which was brought about together with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy when six artists were taken to one of the AWC’s sanctuaries  in Newhaven in the Northern Territory. Scroll down to see a short video taken at the gallery.

To hear the interview press ‘play’ beneath the feature photo above.

Upcoming shows

• Nock Art Gallery, Hong Kong, 2019, date TBA

Show Notes

• Joe Furlonger at Defiance Gallery
• Ann Thomson on Talking with Painters
• Kevin Connor
• Sidney Nolan
• Pablo Picasso
• Ernst Kirchner
• Pierre Bonnard
• Lucian Freud
• Ray Hughes
• Australian Wildlife Conservancy

‘Grainfield Cultivation Moree’ 2014 acrylic bound pigment on canvas, 118 x 133cm (finalist Wynne prize 2014)

‘Desert, Newhaven XXI’, 2018, mixed media on paper, 29.5 x 21cm

‘Self-portrait at Moree’, 2014, acrylic bound pigment on canvas, 162 x 120cm (finalist Archibald prize 2014)

‘South East Queensland – Red Soils’, 2004, colour woodcut on cream wove paper, 54.5 x 89.8cm (permanent collection, AGNSW)

‘Figure’, 1994, gouache on thick white wove paper, 50 x 40.5cm (permanent collection, AGNSW)

‘Boats in Monsoon, Burnett Heads’, 2017, acrylic bound pigment on canvas, 111.5 x 137cm