ESSAY

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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.

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.

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. 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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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 through.

Footway is remarkable 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. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wetlands with Lovers and Crocodile 2006 Acrylic on canvas board 90 x 60 cm Collection of the artist

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Cat. 8 Self Portrait at Hell Hole 2006 Acrylic on board 35 cm diameter Collection of the artist

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

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

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

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

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Cat. 12 “Cranium Rock”: the Burdekin Reaches 2010 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 cm Collection of the artist

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Cat. 13 My Burdekin Garden 2012 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 100 cm Collection of the artist

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Cat. 13 My Burdekin Garden [detail] 2012 [detail] 2012 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 100 cm Collection of the artist

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

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

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

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

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

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Cat. 19 Burdekin Cane Fields 2016-17 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 cm Collection of the artist

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

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

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

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Cat. 21 Mother and Child at the Table 2017 Acrylic on board 90 x 60 cm Collection of the artist

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

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Cat. 22 Mark K. in the Burdekin 2017-18 Acrylic on board 120 x 120 cm Collection of the artist

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Cat. 23 Bougainvillaea in the Burdekin 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 cm Collection of the artist

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

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Cat. 25 Youth with Kapoks: Lee Maitland 2019 Acrylic on board 90 x 120 cm Collection of the artist

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

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Cat. 26 Morning Burn: the Burdekin 2019 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 cm Collection of the artist

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Cat. 27 Afternoon Burn: the Burdekin 2019-21 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 90 cm Collection of the artist

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

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

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

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Cat. 30 Landscape Towards the Ranges 2021 Acrylic on board 120 x 90 cm Collection of the artist

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

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Cat. 32 The Elliots: the Way North 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm diameter Collection of the artist

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Cat. 33 Jack Betteridge, Aged, with Paintings 2020-21 Acrylic on board 100 cm diameter Collection of the artist

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

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Cat. 34 Landscape After a Flood: the Burdekin 2021 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 cm Collection of the artist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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