The legend of Ian Fairweather continued to intrigue audiences in a recent exhibition of his paintings curated by Steven Alderton at the Lismore Regional Art Gallery. Not only did the exhibition revive memories of some of Fairweather’s more important paintings, but it combined these with a selection of his early watercolours and a number of remarkable documentary photographs by friend and part-time photographer Robert Walker. The exhibition also included a screening of Michael Stevenson’s documentary film Making for Sheppey, 2004, which recreates Fairweather’s fateful journey across the Timor Sea aboard a flimsy handmade raft. What becomes immediately apparent in this exhibition is how Fairweather’s paintings and lifestyle have inspired and continue to influence many contemporary artists and their practice. The reverence Australian and foreign artists have for Fairweather has not only influenced the history of Australian art over the last half century, but reflects the universality of his project.
Fairweather was ahead of his time. He was able to transcend borders and engage Asian, European and Australian Indigenous art, which leads one to suggest that his was a truly ‘international’ style. As Bernard Smith states, ‘his art is diacritically international’, since it draws nourishment from Chinese and Aboriginal origins and assimilates the knowledge of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and primitive mythology, rather than simply reiterating European or American sources.1 Perhaps it is only with hindsight that one can reflect on the challenges Fairweather offered to us thirty years earlier. The quality of his work was only understood by a handful of other artists, photographers, journalists and critics in his own lifetime. Since his death in 1984, many more have become fascinated by the story of his life; his is