TIMOTHY AUSTIN (TIM) STORRIER (BORN 1949)
Evening Lament
Oil on canvas
signed and dated 2000 lower right
signed, titled and dated 2000 on stretcher on reverse
183 x 305cm
Provenance
Sherman Gallery, Paddington Sydney; Private Collection, London and Sydney
In the mid 1980’s Storrier started work on dramatic tableaus in which he included the various elements of fire, food, flowers and often his own personal totem, the red-belly black snake. Wilson points out in his book that this came about after Storrier had travelled to Egypt. In the valley of the Kings he saw:
“in the tomb of Ramses I saw an image of a table of fruit, ducks, lotus flowers, and the head of a bull set alight as an offering to Aton, spirit of the sun. … I started painting Incendiary monument (burning of the gifts) as a monumental still-life, but along the way it gained many levels of meaning and its ambiguity is part of its strength. It’s hard to say if it’s a barbecue or a rubbish heap, is it cooking or burning…”
Tim Storrier 1
Storrier continued over the decades painting these dramatic images with Evening Lament being one of his grandest. Here the blazing sunset sky mirrors the inferno on the ground watched over patiently by the artist in the form of the snake.
1Tim Storrier, as quoted in Gavin Wilson, Elemental Reckoning, The Art of Tim Storrier 1981-2011, pg 23, Jam Press pty ltd, 2011, pg 11. This was published in conjunction with the exhibition Elemental Reckoning; the art of Tim Storrier 1981-2011, held at the S. H. Ervin Gallery, Observatory Hill. Gavin Wilson was the curator.