Joe Furlonger: Horizons

10 Here, Cubism and Futurism furnish the compositional chassis and the kinetic energy of works like Driving against speeding cars 1992–93. These paintings unapologetically celebrate contemporary Australian life, even parts of it rarely elevated through art into public consciousness. Much later, Furlonger’s riotously coloured works recalling the circuses he first saw in France, like Circus horse and rider 2005, summon up the free-wheeling spirit of Fernand Léger’s acrobats. Above all, Furlonger is a proudly unreconstructed figurative artist, someone for whom the human figure and the recognisable world is the central concern around which his oeuvre has always turned. For all that, Furlonger’s art historical outlook is hardly restricted to Europe. Time in Vietnam and China influenced later works, as he developed an understanding of traditional Chinese ink painting and an appreciation of the medium’s modern master Qi Biashi. It can be found lodged in his intuitive experiments with ink on paper, searching for an equivalence for the sensation of movement in even the stillest landscape, rather than in a faithful transcription of its features. Closer to home, he has unalloyed empathy with fellow Sinophile Ian Fairweather, but also operates in the long shadows cast by Fred Williams, Sidney Nolan and John Olsen. This roll call suggests the relentless searching of a passionate creative mind keenly aware of the infinite possibilities of art. Indeed, the confidence and distinct character of his most recent landscapes from 2021, among them Scenic Rim view and Chinchilla , bear the fruit of his literal and metaphorical seeking of new horizons over the decades, and a highly successful synthesis of its many inspirations. Like his earliest figure paintings, Furlonger’s landscapes are capped by high horizon lines, as if he has always experienced the world from a humble vantage point, feet planted firmly on the ground. At heart, he is a romantic and an inveterate traveller, initially inspired by artistic contemporaries at home, like Kevin Connor and David Paulson, then deeply affected when abroad by the exhibition ‘A New Spirit in Painting’, in London in 1981.