Howard Arkley
Howard Arkley, perhaps most well-known for his paintings of quotidian Australian suburbs, favored the airbrush for it’s ability to be simultaneously soft and dramatic. Arkley’s early engagement with art sprouted from the glossy art books and 1960s psychedelia collected in his youth. After a trip to Europe in the 1970s, he gravitated toward ornamentation, where architectural details became abstract artworks rather than merely functional accents. He embraced a bold color scheme, riffing off the irreverence of Punk, and looked toward wallpaper patterns, Sidney Nolan, and Paul Klee to challenge ideas of taste. His most famous renditions of “suburban vernacular,” cropped entryways and interiors rendered in flamboyant pattern, are concurrently energetic and alienating. His images, which rarely contained people, strove to reinvent the idea of a neighborhood, suggesting an unpredictable beauty resting beneath the monotony.
Arkley’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia at institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Solander Gallery, Canberra, and the 11th Biennale of Sydney in 1998, among many others. He has also been exhibited internationally at the Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, and Museum of Modern Art, Heide, Germany, among others. Arkley was awarded the Perth Prize for Drawing and Caltex Drawing …
Howard Arkley, perhaps most well-known for his paintings of quotidian Australian suburbs, favored the airbrush for it’s ability to be simultaneously soft and dramatic. Arkley’s early engagement with art sprouted from the glossy art books and 1960s psychedelia collected in his youth. After a trip to Europe in the 1970s, he gravitated toward ornamentation, where architectural details became abstract artworks rather than merely functional accents. He embraced a bold color scheme, riffing off the irreverence of Punk, and looked toward wallpaper patterns, Sidney Nolan, and Paul Klee to challenge ideas of taste. His most famous renditions of “suburban vernacular,” cropped entryways and interiors rendered in flamboyant pattern, are concurrently energetic and alienating. His images, which rarely contained people, strove to reinvent the idea of a neighborhood, suggesting an unpredictable beauty resting beneath the monotony.
Arkley’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia at institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Solander Gallery, Canberra, and the 11th Biennale of Sydney in 1998, among many others. He has also been exhibited internationally at the Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, and Museum of Modern Art, Heide, Germany, among others. Arkley was awarded the Perth Prize for Drawing and Caltex Drawing Prize in 1973. In 1980, the Victorian Ministry for the Arts commissioned him to paint Tram no. 384, 12th in the series of 16 created for the city’s public transportation system. He represented Australia in the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999.
