Merilyn Fairskye discusses the development over the past decade of her series of large scale paintings, outlining her interrogations of space, of the conventions of representation, and of constructions of identity.
ANNE KIRKER Merilyn, in the early eighties you were involved mainly with collaborative public art projects—I'm thinking particularly of the Woolloomooloo Mural Project (1981-84). Since then, you've returned to the studio and relocated your practice politically within a fine art discourse, examining the way in which images are socially constructed and received. For instance several paintings of 1985 addressed the construction of male sexual identity against the idea of a female 'other'. Why did you choose the male figure as a central motif? Was it consciously linked with the exhibition, Pleasure of the Gaze, in which these works featured?
MERILYN FAIRSKYE The paintings, a series of four, were made in 1985. I was painting them at around the time Bruce Adams was formulating that exhibition. I can't recall if the invitation to be in the show preceded or followed the making of the work. I chose those male figures (the series went under the overall title Figures of Speech) because at that time I was particularly interested in gay male porno magazines, and had already made a slide installation (The Easter Show) using images from these magazines. I was intrigued that here was a space where the phallus 'doubled' itself and emphatically excluded women. Also, I rather liked looking at them.
ANNE KIRKER David Bromfield claimed that this show was one of the first in Australia to demonstrate the impact of what he called the New Theory–French post-sixties writing, from Foucault to Baudrillard–and the impact of postmodern... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Merilyn Fairskye, Venice, 1990. Photo: Seva Frangos.
Natural Science: Liebschaft, Viewpoint A, 1988. Oil on canvas. 88 x 232 x 38 ins. Collection Queensland Art Gallery
