Peter Maloney, FUNHOUSE

Peter Maloney

FUNHOUSE 5 - 26 October 2019

© Utopia Art Sydney

Maloney’s paintings usually begin as tiny drawings, often on scraps of paper; pocket notebooks, hotel guest cards, post-it notes etc.

These initial drawings are ephemeral and this sensibility is as central to the artist’s project as the carefully crafted materiality of the completed works. He maintains that the unconscious has no size and the scale of the initial idea is unimportant. This reveals Maloney’s grand plan, to bring the unconscious to a scale capable of visual and conceptual appraisal.

During this process, something highly intimate results in the artist’s ‘big reveal’. He uses a photocopier to gradually enlarge the initial sketches, step by step, via a series of paper templates and then rigorously copies the resulting design to prepared canvas. The process is incredibly time consuming and accomplished with an almost bewildering diligence.

From one perspective, Maloney’s gestures appear to adopt a floral appearance – incorporating the relative unfamiliarity and exoticism of stamens and carpels. As an enthusiastic gardener, this analogy remains significant to an understanding of his work, which can at times appear literally grounded in the earth.

There is considerable energy in the works comprising the FUNHOUSE project. In fact, Maloney imagines the finished works as energy rendered manifest. At times, the sense of energy in the imagery radiates explosively, while at other times multiple lines cocoon themselves – appearing like distant, imploding stars.

Occasionally we seem to discern the sense of sounds emanating from an interior dimension, or hear the echo of voices from the past making attempts to be heard, while the messages themselves remain inaudible.

“I came into the world with a bang, in the weeks following Australia’s entry to the atomic age. I suspect also that I’ll leave that way. We don’t know the future, that’s for sure. In my mind’s eye, I’m surrounded by, and immersed in unseen forces. My job is to depict this experience.”

(Peter Maloney)

Mark Bayly 2019

working sketches for Elevator to Zero on paper

“Like much of what I do it’s about language..in different forms..in dialogue with themselves and each other.

There is some drawing elements if you look closely..it’s mostly a version of cursive script, mostly unreadable as words but serves to query our reliance on “comprehendability”. As such it’s “deep” abstraction if you will!”

Peter Maloney 2019

Cat no 1. Elevator to Zero, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 200 x 465 cm

Cat no 2. Artificial Intelligence, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Cat no 3. Mane Eye, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

Cat no 4. Smoking a Self Portrait, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 106 x 84 cm

Cat no 6. Blodwyn Pig, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 164 x 130 cm

Cat no 7. The Yes Yes Passage, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 200 x 170 cm

Cat no 23. Sheep Dream, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 170 x 90 cm

Cat no 9. Asterixis, 2018, acrylic and collage on canvas, 167 x 116 cm

Cat no 5. Gold Rust, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 102 x 66 cm

Cat no 8. Slow Self Portrait, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 74 x 61 cm

Cat no 22. Psychoweb, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 28 cm

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6 Cat no10 - 15. Excerpts From The Last Museum of Sanity, 2018, ink on paper, 42 x 29 cm

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10

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12 Cat no 16 - 21 . Excerpts From The Last Museum of Sanity, 2019, ink on paper, 42 x 29 cm

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Cat no 24 - 29. The Six Falsettos 1- 6, 2017, acrylic on paper, 77 x 56 cm

*Not on display, Wewerka Chair, 2017, acrylic on paper, 76 x 56 cm

*Not on display, Oasis, 2019, acrylic on paper, 70 x 61 cm

*Not on Display, Excerpts From The Last Museum of Sanity 13, 2019, ink on paper, 42 x 29 cm

*Not on Display, Crying Wolf 1-3, 2019, ink on paper, 29 x 20.5 cm

*Not on display, Quake, 2017, acrylic on paper, 65 x 50 cm

*Not on Display, Honey Bee, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 46 x 46 cm

*Not on Display, Island Marquee, 2019, acrylic and collage on canvas, 124 x 90 cm

*Not on Display, Two Heads, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 80 cm

*Not on Display, Electric Snakebite, 2017, acrylic and collage on canvas, 113 x 83 cm

*Not on Display, River Grasses, 2018, acrylic and collage on canvas, 113 x 83 cm

*Not on Display, Macchia, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 115 cm

*Not on Display, Rust My Ligament, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 71 x 56 cm

*Not on Display, A Year of Too Few Pleasures, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 170 x 130 cm

*Not on Display, Flash Shot Bloom, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm

*Not on Display, Back in a Jet Liner, 2017, acrylic and collage on canvas, 84 x 60 cm

*Not on Display, Gardenesque, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 128 x 88 cm

Utopia Art Sydney Telephone: + 61 2 9319 6437 email: art@utopiaartsydney.com.au www.utopiaartsydney.com.au © Utopia Art Sydney