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Lot #76 - Lin Onus

  • Auction House:
    Mossgreen
  • Sale Name:
    The Lowenstein Collection of Modern & Contemporary Australian Art
  • Sale Date:
    07 Mar 2017 ~ 6pm
  • Lot #:
    76
  • Lot Description:
    Lin Onus
    (1948-1996)
    Frog, circa 1995
    oil on board
    49 x 74 cm
    signed lower right: Lin Onus
  • References:
    Sasha Grishin, Accounting for Taste: the Lowensteins Arts Management Collection, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2013, p. 216 (illustrated)
  • Notes:
    Lin Onus was one of the most fascinating Contemporary Australian artists of the late twentieth century. His art was both aesthetically refreshing and culturally important; it was distinguished by surreal wit yet full political agency. His mixed cultural background (his father, Bill Onus, was a Yorta Yorta man, his mother, Mary McLintock Onus, was of Scottish descent) may have facilitated his ability to hover between the beautiful and the meaningful. In his art, he could fluently straddle between modern Western traditions whilst referencing ancient Aboriginal wisdom. He accomplished this union better than any other Indigenous artist. Onus was a largely self-taught artist. He learned simple, decorative techniques when working for his father’s souvenir business. In the 1970s, when he turned to painting on canvas, it took some time for him to find an ease of expression and execution. Animals were rarely represented. In those early years, his bushy landscapes and quiet river scenes were void of life and meaning. They were drab images by an artist seeking to find his own voice in a country rich in interpreters. It was only once he delved deeper into his indigenous cultural heritage that his art blossomed – both in style, technique and content. In the 1980s, Onus moved away from the conventional picturesque depiction of landscapes. He discovered that he need not follow a banal formula of sky, horizon, middle ground and foreground framed by trees. In his new, exciting works we see Lin zooming into his subjects. We lose a sense of the horizon as we look directly at the ground below. Often, the clear sky or brooding clouds are only present as reflections on the surface of the waters he paints. This new perspective coincided with a marked advancement in his technical bravura. The coarse, dull brush strokes that defined his early work, were now becoming sharp and refined to a point where he could be clearly categorised – if placing Onus in any one art-historical box were possible – as a Photorealist. He had honed his painterly skills to a point where the surface was as flat as mirror, yet provided so much depth and realism that, often, only a close inspection would settle the question as to whether one was looking at a painting or photograph. It was also around this time that Onus began to introduce native fauna into his paintings. Animals hold an important place in Aboriginal Dreaming, culture and art. Tiriki Onus, the artist’s son recalls how on their road trips, he and his father would collect dead animals (roadkill) and ‘upcycle’ their feathers and hide. ‘This is the ritual of our trips through the centre. As we pluck [the birds], Lin tells me stories of how my ancestors, my yenbena, honoured the spirit of the creatures around them, using feathers for ceremony and art; making sure that the animal’s spirit lived on.’1 The animal world was central to the art of Lin Onus. His oeuvre is dotted with images of surfing or crucified Dingoes, meandering crocodiles, cockatoos perched on electrical wires, goldfish coming for air and food, bats resting upside down on a hills hoist, groups of goannas sunbaking on tree trunks, butterflies in mid-flight, schools of swimming stingrays and frogs resting in ponds and lily pads. By introducing all these weird and wonderful creatures into his art, he ensured that their spirits lived on after their, and his, earthly lives. Petrit Abazi 1 Tiriki Onus, ‘Dingo Crucifixion, 1994’, in Ling Onus: Yinya Wala, Mossgreen, Melbourne, 2016, p.4
  • Estimate:
    A$50,000 - 60,000
  • Realised Price:
    *****

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  • Category:
    Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.



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