Facing North: Cutler Footway

Image credit: The teenaged artist painting in the front room of the family home, Wilmington Street, Ayr, c. 1969 Collection of the artist

Publisher Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Townsville City Council PO Box Townsville1268City, Queensland, ©Galleries,galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au4810TownsvilleCityCouncil, and respective artists and authors, 2022 ISBN Published978-0-949461-57-5ontheoccasion of Facing North: Cutler Footway A rt ist Cutler Footway Curator Gitte Weise Publication and Design Development Mak Media Contributing Authors Jonathan McBurnie Gitte Weise Artwork Documentation Michael Marzik Cover Image Marcus Leutscher with Cane Fire, Figurine, Flowers and Skull [detail] 2019-20 Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm Collection of the artist. Photography: Michael Marzik PERC TUCKER REGIONAL GALLERY Cnr Denham & Flinders Street Townsville QLD 4810 Tues – Fri: 10am – 5pm Sat – Sun: 10am – 1pm (07) 4727 whatson.townsville.qld.gov.augalleries@townsville.qld.gov.au9011TownsvilleCityGalleriesTownsvilleCityGalleries

present –

Elders – past

land. We pay our respects to

cultures,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY Townsville City Council acknowledges the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun, Gugu Badhun and Nywaigi as the Traditional Owners of this their their ancestors and their and and all future generations.

Bindal,

FOREWORDCONTENTS 07 by Jane Scott CURATOR’S INTRODUCTION 08 by Gitte Weise ESSAY 10 Cutler Footway and his Burdekin Literary Imaginary by Jonathan McBurnie ARTIST CV 78 LIST OF WORKS 80

The art of Cutler Footway shows us, well over a hundred years past the advent of a plethora of movements that have defined and shaped the contemporary art worldcubism, suprematism, dada, conceptualism and all the other isms of the 20th and early 21st centuries- that even the most sophisticated palette may hunger for an aesthetic rooted within a tradition stretching back to the renaissance, one that still attempts to reconcile an inner vision with a pictorial language developed by generations of painters. For Footway is most assuredly a painter- not for him the devices employed by contemporary artists in their various practices. In his other life, as the art critic and historian Bruce James, he was obliged to assay and appraise the contemporary scene; work carried out, as Jonathon McBurnie notes in his essay, with tact and candour. As Footway, he has been able to pursue a goal few in the current era allow themselves, that of a pastoral Arcadia. His landscapes are however not located in the Peloponnese of myth but half a world away in the Burdekin region; his Arcadia is decidedly antipodean. Footway’s idylls are anything but plein air studies; no passer-by in the Burdekin will find these views. The landscape in which the artist’s nudes are draped is one of the imagination, idealised, undergoing a compression of tonal range while retaining its saturated colour. In his handling of brush and paint equal weight is given to features ranging from the permanent to the transient and even to the momentary; the flames in the cane fields have the apparent mass of rocky outcrops, or of the vegetation they burn.

FOREWORD

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As noted by Gitte Weise in her introduction, we can detect the influence of several artists in Footway’s oeuvre, some of whom James has written on. These works are the result of a creative tension between the necessarily omnivorous appetite of the critic with the artist’s need to integrate his sources. The title for the exhibition, as McBurnie points out, relates to the orientation of artists’ studio windows; but it may also direct us to the importance of artistic streams that found their full flowering in the northern hemisphere, in renaissance Italy and France at the end of the 19th century. Like our own age, those periods were notable for political and social turmoil, in which artists produced works of profound beauty. In this exhibition Footway shows us that there is still a role for painters in sounding the depth and stillness that is at the heart of their vocation.

I wish to acknowledge the substantial efforts made by the Galleries staff towards this exhibition. In particular Chloe Lindo and Jesse Escriva in the development of the catalogue and Jo Lankester in the management of the exhibition. I extend my thanks to Curator Gitte Weise, Jonathan McBurnie and artist Cutler Footway for their insights and dedication in bringing this exhibition into being.

Jane Scott Galleries Director 7

Memories of childhood and family, not without hints of anxiety and sexual questioning, haunt these provisional works. So too does a sense of the “literary imaginary” identified by Jonathan McBurnie in his thoughtprovoking commentary on the artist in this publication. As a lover of canonic novels and Metaphysical poetry, indeed as an established author, Footway is blatantly in thrall to literature.

8 FACING NORTH: CUTLER FOOTWAY CURATOR’S INTRODUCTION

In parallel to the foregoing, Footway explored the more neutral possibilities of interiors and still life subjects, inspired by European Post-Impressionists such as Gauguin and Van Gogh, but also by Australian Modernists Grace Cossington Smith and Margaret Preston - on both of whom he has published extensively. Indeed, the painter’s ties to Australian mid-20th century art movements are significant. As both an historian of and one-time dealer in Australian art he has a handson expertise in the field. His teenage encounter with original paintings by Margaret Olley, Donald Friend and Russell Drysdale in the then CSR collection at Pioneer Sugar Refinery was foundational in his pathway to art making. These artists, especially Drysdale, had strong links to the Burdekin and wider North Queensland. While not daring to rank himself in their number, Footway locates himself in modest relation to their tradition. For all the strength of this national affinity, a pervasive taint of Italian Mannerist painting of the 16th century still conspires to shape his style. This is evidenced in his elongated approach to the figure no less than in his sometimes strained artificiality of address. Aiming to improve his drawing skills and to some degree cleanse himself of Mannerist attitudinising, from 2004 to the present Footway undertook an extensive programme of life drawing. He engaged models from amongst family, friends and itinerant workers. While not outrightly erotic in intention, the resulting anatomies are frankly sensual. A dozen effectively random examples are exhibited here. They make no claim to enduring resonance other than as evidence of the day-to-day activity of a working artist. His fingerprints, if you will. Four of these studies represent Marcus Leutscher, who appears in painted form elsewhere in the show. Thus, several strands of artistic activity converge in a body of work of growing maturity, rooted in the local context yet gesturing to a globalist view. In 2019, Footway was invited to exhibit his Queensland paintings and drawings at Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW. Curated by that institution’s Kim Blunt, this solo show presented a miscellany of recent works that introduced the artist to a southern audience. Uniquely, because Footway rarely releases work for sale, Blunt was able to select from an almost undisturbed repository of canvases and panels housed in the artist’s Wickham Street, Ayr, studio. The present show has also been derived from this source, a body of work through which a lively narrative of mature-age creative reclamation could be told. With the exception of two pivotal panels, Burdekin Cane Fields 2016-17 (Cat. 19) and Large Still Life with Vase, Fruits and Frangipani 2017 (Cat. 20), none of the works has been publicly exhibited before. It is fitting to debut them here in Townsville: Footway took an arts degree from James Cook University in the mid-seventies and for two extended periods lived in rented accommodation on the flanks of the city’s landmark Castle Hill. The title, Facing North, is a reference to the age-old European notion that north-facing light is the most desirable for artists’ studios. But in Australia to face north is not to look toward some weakly illuminating winter sun. It is to turn one’s gaze brazenly to the sub-equator and beyond, seeking but also risking solar

This exhibition reveals almost two decades of unseen work by a singular artist. After a career as an art critic in print and broadcast media in Sydney, Bruce James returned to Ayr, his hometown in the Burdekin district south of Townsville late in 2003. There, aged 50, he resumed full-time painting, aiming to capture the landscapes and people of North Queensland. Working on a tiny, even timid, scale at first, and using his pseudonym Cutler Footway*, the artist steeped himself in the farmland settings and hinterland topography of the region. Burning sugar cane and blazing blue skies, framed by expanses of dry-tropical bushland, defined his compositions, flushed from time to time by a wet season overspill of vibrant greens. Remnants of agricultural and mill machinery emerged here and there to mark the area’s more industrial heritage. Figures, in some cases self-portraits, enlivened many of these initial works as the artist strove to restore himself visibly to the environments of his youth. As his confidence grew, so did the size and ambition of the paintings, resulting in a variety of northern-themed landscapes and views, few of which subscribed to the cultural prescriptions and artistic fashions of the day. (He even seemed to dispense with modernity itself: a sole, sad electric fan gets relegated to the background in a later composition.)

The major paintings, Markus Leutscher with Cane Fire, Figurine, Flowers and Skull, 2019-20 (Cat. 28) and Landscape After a Flood: the Burdekin 2021 (Cat. 34), stand at the end of a developmental line of artistic production which is tracked by this exhibition. The former work is an encyclopaedic artefact, uniting landscape, portraiture and still life into a gaudily summarising statement of the artist’s subjects and preoccupations. The young male sitter, a European traveller it should be noted, does indeed turn his head to face the north in this Footway map of the world. Viewers will note, and some will be disturbed, by the surface roughness of this particular work. It bears obvious signs of many campaigns of painting, indeed of previously completed images. Footway relishes this palimpsest quality, this texturing, so similar in its effect to the crumbled plaster of a Florentine fresco. So marked by its own history of making. So vulnerable, in short. And to view the reverse of a Footway canvas is commonly to be confronted by multiple cancelled titles and dates, a fever chart of the failures, the reconsiderations, the painterly misadventures, really, that nevertheless inform any ultimate image.

From those first tiny psychologically intense compositions with figures posed against Castle Hilllike cliffs and cane fields, painted between 2003-2006, through the more considered and calmer landscape compositions of 2006-2010 and finally to the fully resolved and epically-scaled vistas of 2011-2021, the exhibition divides clearly into three main chronological sections. Associated threads of still life arrangements, portrait subjects and life drawings weave into the main fabric of the show. It is worth noting that the inventory of furnishings, fabrics, floral elements and occasional tribal figurines depicted in the still lifes are readily identifiable by any visitor to the artist’s home and work space. They possess a ceremonial or ritual aspect, accentuated by their repeated appearances in the work. To spend time in the mustard-coloured rooms of Wickham Street is to be embroiled in Footway’s theatre of things, perhaps to become a thing oneself. His organisational instinct is as prone to the proper placement of human forms in an interior as to the positioning of pawpaws on a tabletop.

It remains premature to speculate on any standing Cutler Footway may claim in Australian art, but it is permissible at this point to argue for his individuality and, more pertinently than that, his sincerity. He is an authentic artist of the north. Footway is already that in a telling black-and-white snap taken in the late nineteensixties. It shows the then Ayr High School student in the louvered front room of the family home in Wilmington Street, aspirational palette and panel in his lap, painting a flowerpiece.

Gitte Weise

*Cutler Footway is the name of a pedestrian overpass linking Darlinghurst and Paddington in Sydney, NSW. It was traversed on an almost daily basis by the artist when he lived and worked in that area from the 1970s to the early 2000s. He first used it as a painterly pseudonym in 1983.

9 extremes undreamed of in the studios of Europe. For Footway as well, the north − which for him is always North Queensland − is the location, spiritual as much as geographical, where he finds the faces and the figures that now fill his imagery.

Certain insistent themes are apparent. Landscape, as already suggested, is central to Footway’s output, although it would not be correct to call him a landscape painter. While he initially painted en plein air in the parks and pastures around Ayr, the bulk of his work is the product of long sessions of “not looking”. Or rather, of looking first in and at the landscape but then returning to his workspace to terraform his landscapes from memory. Contrarily, his still life and figural work is based entirely on the robust strictures of observed reality.

Footway’s alter ego, of course, is writer and critic Bruce James, one of the rare examples in Australian art criticism whose work is respected for its honesty, evenhandedness, and even generosity (when deserved). It is possibly because of James’ renown that Footway chooses a more secluded lifestyle. James-the-writer was never one for flattery or puffery. He could be as incisive as the best of them, but never mean. Never cruel. Sadly this approach seems to be disappearing with print media, with the remnants scooting over to either vacuous and starstruck critical blowjobs or relentless, dispiriting diatribes loaded with the latest museum studies and curatorship buzzwords. It is interesting to note, however, that a large part of James’ critical faculty owes to his own experiences as an artist. With a significant amount of life taking place, Cutler Footway emerged more or less fullyformed, and quite separate to the earlier James-the-artist, the result no doubt of years of thinking and writing about art, and an intensifying desire to jump back into practice. There’s nothing more satisfying than returning to the studio after a period of distractions (be they work, family, or life more broadly), but the longer it is left, the harder it is to return. I posit also that this kind of literary and critical background gives the artist a distinctive and advantageous depth of practice. We live in a world of digital wonders, yes, but much contemporary art and literature is now chasing, rather than leading, the cultural zeitgeist, or at least attempting to prefigure its path and score a hit, via adaptation (Netflix remains the golden goose in this respect). The days of a close relationship between literature and the visual arts appears to be a thing of the past, but there are some artists− and I consider Footway one of them− whose work continues to benefit from this tryst. Australian Modernism, in particular operated with similar agency (think of the stormy but productive relationship of Patrick White and Sidney Nolan, for example), which owes potentially for the novel’s preponderance in Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the novel, really, was the first art form to fully describe some kind of Australian experience or condition, at least with some accuracy. While Tom Roberts and Melvin Duffy were running about, grappling with the vastly different light and country, still under the influence of the English Pastoralists, the writers were busy dissecting its violence and sublime indifference to the human experience. In this way, a literary approach seems to be as appropriate an entry point into Footway’s work as any. We have an urgent and often sentimental predisposition toward landscape in Australia. Whether we look to the stylised dreamscapes of Indigenous Australians, the somewhat beleaguered pastorals of colonials, the intensity of feeling of our mucky, sun-bleached attempts at Modernism, landscape figures heavily into the collective unconscious of Australia’s artists. This has its parallels in film and literature, but like film and literature, we are often left with intensive investigations of the same places, again and again, leaving many relatively unexamined. It is a sad reality that if an Australian film is not set in either the outback (a reductive term for what is an absolutely massive swathe of the country) or a depressing white-trash rental deep in the Melbourne suburbs, it stands out starkly, even jarringly. Similarly, the visual arts’ obsessions with Sydney’s coastal sublime, and the dramatic red earth of the back of beyond. The exceptions only prove the rule.

Cutler Footway, a pseudonym taken from an inner-city footbridge between Darlinghurst and Paddington, is a wonderfully puckish choice for an artist whose work methodically subverts and disassembles the mythologies of Australian art and reassembles it − queers it, you could say − in a fascinating critical dialogue with art history which is actually, at times, quite sincere. On one hand we have a cheeky reference to the monied enclaves of Sydney bourgeois taste and refinement; on the other hand, it’s a slab of bloody concrete. Such are the dichotomies of Footway’s quickly-growing oeuvre.

To every Turkey Shoot, Capricornia or Valley of Lagoons, we have three dozen squalid Boyd scrubscapes. Footway’s preoccupation lies within the rich tropical greens, floodlands, mangroves and granite of North Queensland. While the casual observer might be forgiven for associating the region with flat, seemingly endless fields of sugar cane, shouldered in by distant mountains−much of the highway between

CUTLER FOOTWAY AND HIS BURDEKIN LITERARY IMAGINARY

I have an affinity for artists who don’t fit neatly within the narrow pegs of the market, and for artists whose journey has taken them far from the usual byways and crossroads of creative endeavours. Cutler Footway is such an artist, and his story is one I have not found any parallels to.

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The region, which has rarely entered the canon of Australian Art (capital A, ay) offers a dreamlike alternative to what we have grown so used to. The intense colour of the Burdekin palette is exaggerated by the sharp, white light of North Queensland, and the trees retain a rude greenness not always associated with Australian flora. Footway’s affection for these expansive, almost Arcadian vistas re-examines artistic conversations which have largely been neglected in the Modernist and Postmodernist eras. They recall, of course, the tropical humidity and intensity of light and colour of Ray Crooke, of course, but there are lines to be drawn back to the more formalist compositions of artists such as Carpaccio, Pontormo, Raphael and Poussin. I single out these examples in particular for building a sophisticated formal complexity into the illusion of space or depth; for all of their technical virtuosity, the emotion and humanity of their subjects are not lost in the narrative schema. Raphael and Pontormo in particular appear to have influenced the richness of colour fount in Footway’s work, giving his paintings a certain lustre which reached for the sublime, despite the more earthy concern of his human subjects. Despite his definite stance which is quite apart from the prevailing taste of the day (always the best position for an artist), it is perhaps Footway’s approach to the human subject that sets him apart. Working from life and life drawings, the artist manages to capture the subject without relying on the photograph. This may not sound particularly radical, but take a look at any portrait prize selection, and you will see painters whose reliance upon the photographic dominates the very mode of their work; they cannot escape the photographic. This was, I believe, the reason for Footway’s win in the 2020 Percival Portrait Prize; while a number of works stood out in their technical proficiency, the vast majority of these were, essentially, attempts to reproduce the photographic, right down to the dynamic ‘cropping’ of the image plane (something artists really didn’t do until the advent of cinema) and the replication of the blurred depth perception of the camera lens (the great tell: a finely detailed mouth and pair of eyes, matched with a slightly blurry, detail-less nose). Not so in Footway’s work, which once more put a set of pre-Modernist modes of constructing an image into play; the use of tableau as a device to both present the subject, and give the viewer more information about them, and the use of costume and intentional semiotic devices adheres to both a theatrical and artistic heritage which the artist admires greatly. These devices offer a methodical and complex system for representation in an art world primarily concerned with surface, double entendre disguised as wit, and glamour.

For those unfamiliar with the Burdekin, it may appear a sleepy cane-farming community comprising of several small towns peppered among the crops, but the area itself (once you penetrate beyond the cane fields) is home to some fascinating and specific landmarks. Most obvious of these is the Burdekin River, Australia’s largest, in terms of waterflow volume in peak season; during times of flood, the sleepy river broadens and deepens significantly, moving water through the region by the metric tonne, blasting debris and wildlife down its sandy banks. This massive waterflow begins further west in a stunning area behind Charters Towers, the Valley of Lagoons. This is itself a location of no small cultural significance, to either Indigenous Australians of the region, nor to Australian literary circles, the site of a semi-autobiographical story by David Malouf, describing the excitement and self-discovery of camping in the area as a boy. Like Footway’s paintings, the story leans heavily into the natural beauty of its very specific geography; to an outsider, both may at first appear fanciful, visual and literary accounts of place that do not sit neatly inside the scorched Modernist template of Sidney Nolan’s scrubs and plains, nor those found in Patrick White’s Voss and Tree of Man.

I liken Footway’s work to White’s (once again) in its submersion and psychological deconstruction of aspects of the self, examined via external vessels. In White’s case this takes place through piercing character studies, and in Footway’s case a series of closely observed models, worked with for the duration of painting. Also like White, Footway prioritises a sturdy mass and emotional weight over any mannerist affectation or gestures toward realism. Both mould and sculpt complex character studies that are less reflections of themselves (the easier, and more fashionable, route) and more an extension of an intense desire to understand humanity. White’s submersion of the self into a diverse cast of characters over the decades of the 20th century is interesting in its historical context. Unlike many other openly queer authors of the time− James Baldwin, Edmund White, Gore Vidal, for instance− White writes a much more

11 Rockhampton and the Burdekin is surrounded by such a view, but it extends north and south beyond Tully and Bundaberg respectively− but this is just one of many particularities of the region. As depicted in many of his tumbling landscapes, the intensity of light and colour is unavoidable. Trees often grow, slanting away from the currents of waters not always present, the land slowly digests old sheds and farming equipment, and the cane fires spill into the sky in spectacular fashion, an outdated practice which has now calcified into tradition.

Rounding out Facing North are a number of Footway’s still life works, which capture the artist’s gifts for tableau and composition in perhaps quieter, but no less accomplished arrangements. Footway’s home studio offers a fascinating insight into his work, assembling sculptures, shells, pottery and other vessels that appear periodically within work, as well as art books stacked high, a collection of Catholic iconography and yellow walls from which the azures of his paintings absolutely pop. The objects which have been gathered by the artist over the years have their own stories, but have ended up proximate to the studio for their own particular craft and beauty. The entire collection really comes together as a quite personal and revealing aesthetic, as reflected within the paintings. Occasionally painted with sections of Footway’s own works sectioning a background, the artist’s still lifes somehow anchor the more elemental, untamed vistas of his landscapes. For even though much of the Burdekin is industrialised, it is still very much at the mercy of the elements. Unprecedented weather events may be new to much of the world, but to the Burdekin, which has experienced a number of cyclones and floods, it is very much a part of life, and indeed incorporated into its seasonal rhythms. The still lifes are Footway’s world reassembled in miniature, quiet moments taking place inside an unassuming home studio, while the world buzzes away frantically outside.

Jonathan McBurnie

12 universal experience in that every character is a vehicle for the narrative, but it only through his distinctly outsider perspective that ‘the real White’ occasionally comes Footwaythrough.isremarkable in his treatment of the figure. Life drawing and careful observation forms a key aspect of his studio practice, though Footway is not obsessed with accuracy. Rather, an enlivened attempt at capturing the essence, the character, the spirit, of the subject is always at play. It is clear that the artist’s drawings play an integral role in his practice, and so are included as a part of the exhibition. These drawings, made more for continued inquiry into understanding the human form than as studies for paintings, nevertheless allow the artist to begin to understand his subjects. This in itself forms a fascinating part of the story, as many of the sitters are not necessarily known to Footway. Many are backpackers and hospitality workers who show an interest in being portrayed, many for the very first time, and this tentativeness is sometimes reflected in their body language, if not expression. Others revel in the experience, either using the opportunity to play a character, or simply relishing the opportunity to be appreciated in such a specific way.

13 Cat. 1 Woman Dreaming a Cane Fire: Evelyn Pritchard 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist

14 Cat. 2 Cane Fire Annunciation (left panel only) 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist

15 Cat. 3 Woman in a Fantasy Landscape, with Castle Hill 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist

16 Cat. 4 Self Portrait as the Courtesan of Castle Hill 2004 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist

17 Cat. 5 Cane Fire Across a Fence, Giru 2005-06 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist

Cat. 6 Landscape in Ayr, with Worker [detail] 2003-04-14-15 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

20 Cat. 6 Landscape in Ayr, with Worker 2003-04-14-15 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 7 Wetlands with Lovers and Crocodile 2006 Acrylic on canvas board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

22 Cat. 8 Self Portrait at Hell Hole 2006 Acrylic on board 35 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist

23 Cat. 9 A Burdekin Pastorale 2010 Acrylic on board 50 x 40 cm (oval) Collection of the artist

24 Cat. 10 Self Portrait as my Mother 2010 Acrylic on board 38 x 32 Collectioncm of the artist

25 Cat. 11 A Portrait of the Artist’s Niece, Janai Fabbro 2010-12-13-15-19 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 11 A Portrait of the Artist’s Niece, Janai Fabbro [detail] 2010-12-13-15-19 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

28 Cat. 12 “Cranium Rock”: the Burdekin Reaches 2010 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

29 Cat. 13 My Burdekin Garden 2012 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 100 Collectioncmof the artist

[detail] 2012

32 Cat. 14 Still Life with Skull, Seed Pods, Flowers, Fruit and Electric Fan 2012-13-14-19 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

33 Cat. 15 Still Life with Vase, Jug, Cup, Fruit and Gloves 2016-19 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 50 Collectioncmof the artist

34 Cat. 16 Still Life with Gleeson’s Brushes 2016 Acrylic on board 60 x 45 Collectioncm of the artist

35 Cat. 17 Still Life with Teapot, Vase and Senufo (?) Figurine 2016-17 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

36 Cat. 18 Still Life with Bottle, Pitcher and Mango: the Three Graces 2016-17 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

37 Cat. 19 Burdekin Cane Fields 2016-17 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 19 Burdekin Cane Fields [detail] 2016-17 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 20 Large Still Life with Vase, Fruits and Frangipani [detail] 2017 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

42 Cat. 20 Large Still Life with Vase, Fruits and Frangipani 2017 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

43 Cat. 21 Mother and Child at the Table 2017 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 22 Mark K. in the Burdekin [detail] 2017-18 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

46 Cat. 22 Mark K. in the Burdekin 2017-18 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

47 Cat. 23 Bougainvillaea in the Burdekin 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

48 Cat. 24 Table with Jug and Fruit 2017-18 Acrylic on canvas 45 x 35 Collectioncm of the artist

49 Cat. 25 Youth with Kapoks: Lee Maitland 2019 Acrylic on board 90 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

Cat. 25 Youth with Kapoks: Lee Maitland [detail] 2019 Acrylic on board 90 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist

52 Cat. 26 Morning Burn: the Burdekin 2019 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

53 Cat. 27 Afternoon Burn: the Burdekin 2019-21 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

54 Cat. 28 Marcus Leutscher with Cane Fire, Figurine, Flowers and Skull 2019-20 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 Collectioncmof the artist

55 Cat. 29 Marcus Leutscher with Cane Fire 2020 Acrylic on canvas 75 x 75 Collectioncm of the artist

Cat. 30 Landscape Towards the Ranges [detail] 2021 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

58 Cat. 30 Landscape Towards the Ranges 2021 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

59 Cat. 31 Still Life with Coral, Shells, Fruit and Pelt 2021 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

60 Cat. 32 The Elliots: the Way North 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist

61 Cat. 33 Jack Betteridge, Aged, with Paintings 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist

Cat. 34 Landscape After a Flood: the Burdekin [detail] 2021 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 Collectioncmof the artist

64 Cat. 34 Landscape After a Flood: the Burdekin 2021 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 Collectioncmof the artist

65 Cat. 35 Marcus L., Hand on Thigh 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

66 Cat. 36 Marcus L., Torso, Standing 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

67 Cat. 37 Marcus L., Folded Arms, Supine 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

68 Cat. 38 Marcus L., Arms on Chest, Supine 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

69 Cat. 39 David R., Torso, Resting 2017 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

70 Cat. 40 Michael D., Folded Arms, Seated c. 2015 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

71 Cat. 41 Heath, Full Face c. 2006 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

72 Cat. 42 Sacha, Seated c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

73 Cat. 43 Heiko, Head Tilt c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

74 Cat. 44 Doug, Seated, Left Facing c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist

75 Cat. 45 Juan A., Sleeping c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

76 Cat. 46 Tom Hampson, Profile, Hand to Chin c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

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1952 Born, Ayr, North Queensland. 1970 Graduated, Ayr State High School. 1975 Graduated, Bachelor of Arts, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville. Cultural Affairs Officer, JCU Students’ Union. Editor, student newspaper and student magazine.

1975-1976 Art practice, Brisbane, Queensland. Solo exhibition of terracotta sculptures and paintings at University of Queensland Theatre. 1978-1979 Solo exhibition at 11/344 Edgecliff Rd, Bellevue Hill, Sydney. Solo exhibition paintings, Cascade & Hargrave Gallery, Paddington, Sydney, courtesy Exiles Gallery. “Badfag” thematic solo exhibition of works on paper and sculptural installation, Exiles Gallery, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. 1979-1983 Art practice, Sydney. First use of pseudonym, “Cutler Footway”, 1983. 1983-1984 Resident, Townsville, North Queensland. Art practice. Guest lecturer, Department of Artistic and Expressive Studies, James Cook University. Guest lecturer and technical assistant, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville.

1984 “Pictures and Toys”, solo exhibition of paintings and sculptural assemblages, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, 9-29 June. 1985 Resident Sydney, art practice. 1986 Post Graduate Diploma, Gallery Management, College of Fine Art, UNSW, Paddington campus. 1986-1987 Gallery assistant, Painters’ Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney, under Robyn Brady (now Robyn Martin-Weber). 1987-1993 Partner, Robyn Brady Pty Ltd, Sydney. 1990 Author, “Grace Cossington Smith”, Craftsman House, Sydney. 1990-1998 Arts Writer and Art Critic, “The Australian”, “Mode”, “Business Review Weekly”, and principally as senior art critic, “Sydney Morning Herald”. 1995-1996 On air art critic, “Review”, ABC TV.

1995 Wrote and presented documentary on surrealist painter, James Gleeson, “Journey of Imagination”, ABC TV, directed by Steven Salgo.

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Bruce James/Cutler Footway

CURRICULUM VITAE

79 1997-1998 Editor, “Fotofile Magazine”, Sydney. 1998-2003 Broadcaster, ABC radio National, “Arts Today” and “Nightclub”. 1999 Author, “Art Gallery of NSW Handbook”, AGNSW, Sydney. 2003 Author, “Australian Surrealism: The Agapitos/Wilson Collection,” Beagle press, Sydney. 2003-2021 Resident Ayr, North Queensland. Art practice. 2019 “My North” Retrospective Exhibition at Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW. 25 May − 18 August. 2020 Winner, “Percival Portrait Painting Prize”. 2022 Exhibition “Facing North: Cutler Footway” at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, September 16 − November 27.

80 FACING NORTH: CUTLER FOOTWAY PUBLICATION ORDER, IMAGE CREDITS AND LIST OF WORKS Cat. 1 Woman Dreaming a Cane Fire: Evelyn Pritchard 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 2 Cane Fire Annunciation (left panel only) 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 3 Woman in a Fantasy Landscape, with Castle Hill 2003 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 4 Self Portrait as the Courtesan of Castle Hill 2004 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 5 Cane Fire Across a Fence, Giru 2005-06 Acrylic on canvas board 20 x 22 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 6 Landscape in Ayr, with Worker 2003-04-14-15 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 7 Wetlands with Lovers and Crocodile 2006 Acrylic on canvas board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 8 Self Portrait at Hell Hole 2006 Acrylic on board 35 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist Cat. 9 A Burdekin Pastorale 2010 Acrylic on board 50 x 40 cm (oval) Collection of the artist Cat. 10 Self Portrait as my Mother 2010 Acrylic on board 38 x 32 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 11 A Portrait of the Artist’s Niece, Janai Fabbro 2010-12-13-15-19 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 12 “Cranium Rock”: the Burdekin Reaches 2010 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist

81 Cat. 13 My Burdekin Garden 2012 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 100 Collectioncmof the artist Cat.14 Still Life with Skull, Seed Pods, Flowers, Fruit and Electric Fan Collection90Acrylic2012-13-14-19oncanvasx90cmofthe artist Cat. 15 Still Life with Vase, Jug, Cup, Fruit and Gloves 2016-19 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 50 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 16 Still Life with Gleeson’s Brushes 2016 Acrylic on board 60 x 45 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 17 Still Life with Teapot, Vase and Senufo (?) Figurine 2016-17 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 18 Still Life with Bottle, Pitcher and Mango: the Three Graces 2016-17 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 19 Burdekin Cane Fields 2016-17 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 20 Large Still Life with Vase, Fruits and Frangipani 2017 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 21 Mother and Child at the Table 2017 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 22 Mark K. in the Burdekin 2017-18 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 23 Bougainvillaea in the Burdekin 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist Cat 24 Table with Jug and Fruit 2018 Acrylic on canvas 45 x 35 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 25 Youth with Kapoks: Lee Maitland 2019 Acrylic on board 90 x 120 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 26 Morning Burn: the Burdekin 2019 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist

82 Cat. 27 Afternoon Burn: the Burdekin 2019-21 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 28 Marcus Leutscher with Cane Fire, Figurine, Flowers and Skull Acrylic2019-20on canvas 150 x 150 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 29 Marcus Leutscher with Cane Fire 2020 Acrylic on canvas 75 x 75 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 30 Landscape Towards the Ranges 2021 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 31 Still Life with Coral, Shells, Fruit and Pelt 2021 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 60 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 32 The Elliots: the Way North 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist Cat. 33 Jack Betteridge, Aged, with Paintings 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm Collectiondiameterofthe artist Cat 34 Landscape After a Flood: the Burdekin 2021 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 Collectioncmof the artist Cat. 35 Marcus L., Hand on Thigh 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 36 Marcus L., Torso, Standing 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 37 Marcus L., Folded Arms, Supine 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 38 Marcus L., Arms on Chest, Supine 2019 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 39 David R., Torso, Resting 2017 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 40 Michael D., Folded Arms, Seated c. 2015 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

83 Cat. 41 Heath, Full Face c. 2006 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 42 Sacha, Seated c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 43 Heiko, Head Tilt c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 44 Doug, Seated, Left Facing c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 42 x 59 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 45 Juan A., Sleeping c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist Cat. 46 Tom Hampson, Profile, Hand to Chin c. 2005 Oil crayon on archival cartridge paper 59 x 42 Collectioncm of the artist

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Image credit: Verso. Cat 24 Table with Jug and Fruit 2017-18 Acrylic on canvas 45 x 35 Collectioncm of the artist