Self Portrait as Monk
Peter Churcher
Details
- Artist
- Peter Churcher
- Title
- Self Portrait as Monk
- Year
- 1994
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Size
- 71 x 61 cm
Provenance
the artist
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art
private collection
Exhibited
Peter Churcher, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 1994 - first solo exhibition
Further Information
Peter Churcher’s artistic concern from the outset was the human figure and the human condition. A realist in style, he drew from the world around him – the actual physical world (of people; landscapes; settings; disparate objects in his studio) and his own sphere of interest, knowledge and experience (of art historical references and influences; the heroic myths of Virgil, Homer, Ovid; and of the power of art, whether music or painting, to evoke emotion).
Churcher’s paintings are a faithful representation of their subject. There is an element of truth-seeking and honesty, for which he has been compared with William Dobell; Lucien Freud and Bill Henson.[1] A rawness in using people he simply met in the street[2] rather than professional models strengthened this element and appealed to an artist schooled in the European masters in the tradition of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velazquez and Van Gogh who also elevated ordinary people and objects as art. This adds to the timeless appeal and universal quality of such paintings, something the young Churcher perhaps hoped to emulate.
In this painting, from Churcher's first solo exhibition in 1994, uses himself as the model, a ready sitter but also an in-depth look at self, imagery and identity, particularly with the 'costume' element, the monk's robe allowing for an exploration of painting drapery.
[1] LDFA, 1996 (Dobell); Grishin, 2004 (Freud); McDonald, 2006 (Henson)
[2] Churcher’s use of ‘ordinary’ people is noted in Grishin, 2004 “The parade of humanity which the artist has spotted in the street and brought into the studio and which he has studied in considerable detail over a number of years through numerous paintings becomes a cast of characters who play out a largely unscripted narrative.” and Macdonald, 2006