Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

,•· The Co u r i er - Mai l 1 0 No vember 19 8 2 LAWRENCE Daws ... "We cannot handle freedom". Picture: RAYCASH. Arcadia ringed by flame LAWRENCE Daws' ·a,atshouse People Mountains emerge with a weathered represented in a lavishly-illustrated timelessness from a world in flames. book on the artist, which spans 28 "Bloody Queenslandera/' 'be S&JI. years. "We're a mob of pr,rotedmica, always Daws' is not a view of the Sunshine burning something. ' ·;i.:, State which ru'ral traditionalists will "For some reason or other. we can- hold in any great affection. But, as bo- . not handle freedom. In the subcon- fits a trustee of the Queensland Art scious, there is always anxiety, and we Gallery, this Adelaide-born painter is run from it to self-imposcd cages." extraordinarily affectionate towards Daws is in the forc(ront of oontempo- the state be adopted 12 years ago. rary Australian painters. And, as is the "I think that we migrants are less case with another towering figure in conservative than the native-born," he the art world, Charles Blackman, he said. "We came for the warmth and fell has made his home on the Sunshine in love with the vigorous growth, par• Coast. ticularly when the wet season comes. Like a pendulum, Daws has swung "Queensland bas a wonderful, ratty- rhythmically, in recent years at least, tally vitality; it's homes are not the pre- between the themes of almost Arcadian tcntious southern variety, but honest- landscape and the terror which seems to-goodness places where you can get often to lurk darkly beneath beauty. on with the elemental business of liv- Thc themes arc point and counter- ing." point in a major exhibition at the Philip There was something of the hermit in _B_a_co_n;;..;;:G;.::a;;.;lle;;.;r..;,;ics;;;...a.n,_d... a_,re..,.al_,so....,stro....,,;n.11gi..ly'--_al_,l "p_a i'!.ters, he said. His old friend, chess partner and neighbor on Bribie Island for several years, the late Ian Fairweather, was a classic example. "And Quccnslanders allow us to be hermits," he said. Even the forest undergrowth fires which seemed to burn constantly around his old farmstead at Beerwah were an integral part of life - ..they arc a purifier, a transition of one state of nature to another". And of Quccnsland's appreciation of fine art, Daws positively glows: "We support more artists per head of popu– lation than any other state. Perhaps it has something to do with the number of millionaires here." It is by no means essential to be a millionaire at Daws' biggest exhibition to date in Queensland, but if you arc buying, it is no handicap, either. For anything in a frame, prices range from • $400 to SIS,000. - DON PETERSEN I