Manifesto!: Jacqueline Fahey
1003 x 740mm framed
As a body of work, this selection of works provides a view of Fahey’s highly engaged and responsive practice across five decades. It demonstrates that she has always stayed true to her own artistic vision, regardless of its reception or fashion of the times – pursuing her own manifesto for painting.
Gow Langsford Gallery is proud to present Manifesto!, Jacqueline Fahey’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.This exhibition shows works from a broad cross section of the distinguished painter’s career output, with works dating from the early 1970s up until the present. Manifesto! highlights Fahey's artistic vision, technical finesse, and the diverse range of content that she has engaged with over the decades.
To echo her own sentiment towards making, Fahey quotes fellow artist, Max Beckmann. He writes, "'In my opinion, there are two directions in art. One, which is the more dominant at the moment, is the art of the surface and stylised decoration; the other is concerned with space and depth…. For myself, I pursue the art of space and depth with all my soul and try to achieve my own style in it. I want a style that, in contrast to the art of exterior decoration, will penetrate as deeply as possible into the fundamentals of nature, into the soul of things. I am fully aware that many of the feelings I experience have already existed before. But I also recognise what is new in my feelings, what I have drawn from my time and its spirit. It is not something that I want to or can define. It is in my pictures.’”
Fahey's paintings are steeped in narrative – personal, political, and social. One can see aspects of the artist’s family life in the works Mum, Christmas Day (1971), Christmas Day (1986), and Grandma and Emily (1992). The urban culture of Central Auckland’s red-light district is explored in K Rd (1998). The most recently completed work, Look Mum, They Killed Her! (2022), includes an aspect of self-portraiture and refers to lockdowns – a central part of the collective experience of Covid-19. As a body of work, this selection of works provides a view of Fahey’s highly engaged and responsive practice across five decades. It demonstrates that she has always stayed true to her own artistic vision, regardless of its reception or fashion of the times – pursuing her own manifesto for painting.
Fahey trained at the Canterbury University School of Art (which later became known as Ilam School of Fine Arts) from 1948 – 1952. She first exhibited her work in the mid-1950s. In the nearly 70 years since, she has held numerous exhibitions throughout New Zealand and other parts of the world. She was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1997, and in 2013 received a New Zealand Arts Foundation Icon Award – the highest honour the foundation can grant.
