Brian Hartigan has been exhibiting since 1985 and is already in discerning and prestigous collections such as those of Allen, Arthur and Robinson and Baker and McKenzie and the Wollongong City Gallery. My work is primarily concerned with way the flat surface of a painting can be made to appear three-dimensional. This is the aspect of painting that artists refer to as "form". This is a central preoccupation for me because I see it as the most fundamental characteristic of painting; the thing which, if neglected, often results in a painting becoming either "illustration" or "design". Although the traditional method of rendering a three-dimensional shape is to draw its outline and then fill it with various colours and tones in order to suggest solidity, it occurred to me that it must be possible to approach this matter from the opposite end - that is, to start the picture by placing various colours and tones on the canvas and allowing them to suggest the shapes. When I place these first colours and tones some immediately appear to advance and others to recede, some appear to catch the light while others seem in shadow. This sense of elementary three-dimensional shapes can be emphasised with a few outlines or by adding more colour, or by blocking out some shapes and leaving others. The painting advances in this manner until I arrive at a solid, more complex image. But in the end, it is a much more ineffable quality that rules: even if the resulting form is as solid as the Pyramids, if I don't find the painting in some way intriguing or satisfying, it still gets thrown out. -Brian Hartigan

Exhibition 2008: paintings

other available works - paintings on paper

Exhibition 2004

previous works