Object D'Art, 1988
oil on canvas
100.0
x 400.0
cm
Provenance
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney
Exhibited
'Object D'Art', Mori Gallery, Sydney, 1988, cat. 8
As Norrie explains in her title, this opulent painting is also an objet d’art, a market commodity valued for its beauty. She proposes that this image inspired by ikebana arrangement, overlaid with stenciled flowers in gold, red and green, is a decoration that would enhance the interior design of an equally opulent home.
The mysterious oil painting, where subjects disappear and re-emerge under veils of paint, creates a compelling argument for the magical aura of the highly desirable art object. It belongs to a series of twelve works Norrie painted in Sienna, Italy in the Bicentennial year. The beauty of this series and its overwhelming exploration of the decorative are characteristically counterpoised by darker, more contentious cerebral notes.
At the time, Norrie was one of many Australian artists concerned with neo-colonial culture in the 1980s. This decadent series was paradoxically a study of social realism for Norrie, who was looking at cultural transference, identity, place and history – and, thinking about what 1980s doctrines of style, which fetishised the oriental and exotic, said about our culture.
In her investigation she concluded that the ‘touchstones of the master-work, truth and beauty’ are shared between art and decoration. In her Objet d’Art paintings she developed a language that boldly showed this strong link, listing its elements as ‘lacquers, stencils, screen, surface, patina, cartouches.’ This visual language continued to articulate her interest in high and low, inside and outsider cultures throughout history.
