Robert MacPherson
Robert MacPherson | Australia b.1937 | Mayfair: (Swamp rats) Ninety-seven signs for C.P., J.P., B.W., G.W. & R.W. 1994-95 Synthetic polymer paint on masonite | 97 panels: 92 x 61cm (each); 370 x 1573cm or 556 x 1069cm (installed) | Purchased 1998 with a special allocation from the Queensland Government. Celebrating the Queensland Art Gallery's Centenary 1895-1995 | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Robert MacPherson
Australia b.1937
Mayfair: (Swamp rats) Ninety-seven signs for C.P., J.P., B.W., G.W. & R.W. 1994-95
Synthetic polymer paint on masonite
97 panels: 92 x 61cm (each);
370 x 1573cm or 556 x 1069cm (installed)
Purchased 1998 with a special allocation from the Queensland Government. Celebrating the Queensland Art Gallery's Centenary 1895-1995
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Robert MacPherson
Mayfair: (Swamp rats) Ninety-seven signs for C.P., J.P., B.W., G.W. & R.W. 1994-95
One of Australia's most important living conceptual artists, Robert MacPherson's work explores sophisticated philosophical propositions such as what constitutes a work of art.
His works often incorporate familiar imagery and everyday materials such as road signs, paint brushes, shovels and blankets.
Mayfair: (Swamp rats) Ninety-seven signs for C.P., J.P., B.W., G.W. & R.W. consists of 97 masonite panels painted in the manner of homemade roadside advertisements. It acknowledges the richness, humour and interest of ordinary life and is dedicated to a group of fishermen, or swamp rats ― identified in the title by their initials ― who live around the marshy zone near the mouth of the Brisbane River.
The painting is a complex exploration of the creation of meaning via language. In this awe-inspiring block of painted text, meaning becomes fractured; it becomes almost impossible to read individual words in the usual manner.
MacPherson thus highlights the disjunction between the ordered system of language and the world's chaotic plethora of things that language describes. He celebrates both the refined beauty of art and the banality of everyday life.
