Private Collection, Melbourne;
Sotheby's, Melbourne, May 2001, lot 35, (as 'Non Objective Painting";
Agnews, London
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Ralph Balson
Matter Painting, 1961
SOLD
oil on composition board
122.00 x 137.00
signed and dated l.r.; certificate of authenticity attached on reverse
Ralph Balson - Third Memorial Exhibition, Gallery A, Sydney (May-June) and Melbourne (July) 1969, no. 25 (label verso);
Ralph Balson - A Retrospective, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Aug-Sept 1989, and travelling to Newcastle, Woolongong, Art Gallery of NSW and Queensland University, no. 55;
Australian Paintings, Agnews, 2002
Bruce Adams, above exhibition catalogue, illus p. 94;
Agnews and Charles Nodrum exhibition catalogues
The Non Objective series of the 1950s employed dabs, spots (they are sometimes nicknamed "spotties") and marks applied with, or at least modified by the brush. the spontaneity was taken to further lengths in the Matter series explored poured paint, drifting and coalescing into shapes and patterns - often reminiscent of galaxies - and, at their purest, untouched by the artist's hand. This work appears to be at once a hybrid and a missing link. the paint has been poured but modified with vigorous gestures, thus linking it to the work of the then emerging younger generation such as Upward, Rapotec, Olsen.
Further works by the Artist
Since its establishment in 1984, the Charles Nodrum Gallery’s exhibition program embraces a diversity of media and styles - from painting, sculpture & works on paper to graphics and photography; from figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist & social comment to installation & conceptually based work.