Geoff Dyer (1947-2020) had a unique capacity to evoke light through paint, capturing a sense of atmosphere and charging each work with an unmistakable strength and intensity. Dyer’s love of the landscape was fostered through the use of watercolour and gouache, utilising the freedom of working on paper to paint plein air. Although more nationally renowned for his large robust oils, Dyer regularly returned to watercolour and gouache, enjoying its freedom and immediacy. Similar to his oils, Dyer regularly revisited specific locations with his works on paper, including rough seas of Ocean Beach, the Freycinet skyline from Dolphin Sands and the Furneaux Group, a group of approximately 100 islands located at the eastern end of Bass Strait, between Victoria and Tasmania.
A superb gouache of the famous Painted Cliffs on Maria Island, this piece is of the larger two scale that Dyer typically completed when working on paper. From 2006, the work has a very vivid colour palette, demonstrating Dyer’s unique capacity to interpret the bright colours of the Tasmanian landscape through gouache and watercolour. Dyer has captured the shimmering transparency of the water, reflecting the iconic yellow of the sandstone cliffs, including its iconic patterning caused by ground water filtering down and staining the rock. This work has been held in a private collection Sydney and has recently been re-framed with hand finished moulding, fast mount and Art Glass. The work is signed lower right.
Geoff Dyer (1947-2020) had a highly celebrated professional career spanning over fifty years, with countless solo exhibition nationally, as well as exhibitions in Singapore, Guangdong and New York. His work is held in numerous important collections including the National Portrait Gallery, Artbank, the University of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Dyer was hung in the New South Wales Art Gallery over twenty times as a finalist in the Archibald prize (1993, 1996, 1999 -2004, 2006 and 2011), Wynne Prize (1977, 1988–1993, 1998, 2004) and Sulman Prize (1997, 2006). Dyer became an Archibald finalist for the first time in 1993 with a portrait of environmentalist and Federal Green’s leader, Bob Brown. His last portrait, included a portrait of David Walsh, founder of MONA. Most notably, Dyer won the Archibald Prize in 2003 with a portrait of writer, conservationist and friend, Richard Flanagan.
GEOFF DYER (1947-2020)
Painted Cliffs Maria Island II
2006
gouache on paper
signed lower right
76 x 102 cm (framed with Art Glass)
$8,950.00
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Sydney.