ANDREW SIBLEY
England, UK | 1933-2015
Andrew Sibley was a significant Australian painter and teacher whose career spanned more than five decades. Known for his highly individual figurative imagery, portraiture, landscape, drawing and abstraction, Sibley developed a distinctive visual language populated by expressive, often whimsical and psychologically complex figures.
Born in England in 1933, Sibley studied at the Gravesend School of Art in Kent before arriving in Australia in 1948 at the age of fifteen. After settling in Queensland, he became associated with the influential painter Jon Molvig and emerged as a key member of what became known as the Brisbane School. He held his first exhibition in 1960, exhibited at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1961 and the following year was included in an exhibition at the Tate Gallery. In 1962 he also won the prestigious Transfield Art Prize, at the time Australia's richest art award. During the 1960s and 1970s his work was included in exhibitions in Europe, Japan and the United States.
Sibley moved to Melbourne in 1966 and became an important figure in Australian art education as well as a practising artist. From 1966 until 1990 he lectured in Fine Arts at RMIT before becoming Head of Painting at Monash University. He continued to exhibit regularly throughout his career, holding annual exhibitions in Melbourne for more than thirty years.
Although Sibley's work changed considerably throughout his career, the human figure remained central to his art. His portraits could be penetrating and psychologically intense, while other works transformed people into theatrical, dreamlike and sometimes humorous characters. Drawing was fundamental to his practice, and his fluid line and ability to simplify the human form remained evident even in his most colourful later paintings. The National Portrait Gallery holds a substantial group of his portraits and drawings.
Portraiture formed an important part of Sibley's career. His portraits of fellow artist Jon Molvig, artist Mirka Mora and critic and art historian Alan McCulloch were finalists in the Archibald Prize, while portraits of his wife Irene Sibley and writer Rodney Hall were finalists in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. His subjects also included prominent Australian cultural and public figures such as Fred Williams, Judy Cassab, Sir Zelman Cowen and Sigrid Thornton.
In his later work, Sibley's figures increasingly inhabit an imaginative world of their own. His Petal People and Petal Family works are particularly recognisable, with boldly outlined figures, flattened areas of colour and faces that can appear affectionate, mischievous, eccentric or mysterious. Beneath their apparent playfulness is Sibley's continuing fascination with human relationships, personality and the ways in which people connect with one another.
This aspect of his practice is particularly well represented by the works held by Plum Gallery. Petals in Love Series: The Petal People, Petal Mates Series: Petal People, My Little Petal Loves Me Series: The Petal Family, That Petal Wants Me Series: The Petal Family and I've Got a Gift Series: The Petal People show Sibley's unmistakable later figurative language. Alongside these, works such as Dancing Together Series: Mad Dancing, Wrong Step Series: Mad Dancing, Dilya, Odilya, The Witch of the Woods and Flowers Heal II reveal the extraordinary variety he could achieve within this highly personal world of figures.
Sibley's work is represented in major Australian public collections, and his long career as both artist and teacher established him as an important figure in post-war Australian art. The National Portrait Gallery describes him as a painter known for his figurative paintings, landscapes and abstract works and holds twenty portraits by or of Sibley in its collection.
For Plum Gallery, this collection offers an especially appealing view of Andrew Sibley's later figurative work. Seen together, the Petal People, Petal Family and dancing figures reveal an artist who never lost his curiosity about people. Colourful, eccentric and immediately recognisable, these works combine humour and tenderness with the expressive line and fascination with the human figure that remained at the heart of Sibley's art throughout his career.
