44 SPECTRUM 45 ARTLINES 3 | 2025 Like Groves, Michael Johnson and Leonard Brown also tempered references to the hard-edge aesthetic via gestural applications of paint. Johnson’s Painting no. 3 c.1976 floats coloured bars in an expansive void. His off-kilter placement of the bars eschews the strict right-angles of several of his earlier works, instead implying a twisting, tumbling motion. By contrast, The cave, the mountain, the priest’s hat – all of these 1996 by Leonard Brown negates the machine-made perfection associated with hard-edge painting, instead separating fields of black and red with a curved edge that gently meanders with the movement of his hand. Fittingly, like this border, the subject of Brown’s painting is not hard or fixed in its meaning, referring to a selection of spiritually resonant objects. John Peart’s paintings were also inspired by spiritual concerns. In the early 1960s, he embraced texts on Tantric philosophy, Zen Buddhism and yoga, consequently painting minimalist voids that mediate the realms of the visible and invisible. After viewing colour-field paintings by North American artists Morris Louis (1912–62) and Kenneth Noland (1924–2010), Peart felt compelled to develop lively, gestural style, exemplified by his works in ‘Spectrum’.4 To create Colour square III 1968, Peart painted onto a raw, unprimed canvas using dry-brush and staining techniques, creating a texture that contrasts the smooth finish associated with hard-edge abstraction. His intuitive patterning and colour selection encourages the viewer’s eyes to leap in twists and turns across the artwork, lending it a mantra-like repetition and jazzy, improvisational rhythm.5 By contrast, Before Cook and Columbus II 1976 comprises a smoky, shifting field, punctuated by angular polygons in solid tones — switching between solid and ephemeral forms creates the impression of a vast space animated with energy. Considered within the context of Tantric philosophy, Peart‘s paintings provide fictive spaces for the mind to roam, encouraging meditative contemplation. Linked by a network of shared connections to the ever-present legacy of Australian abstraction, these diverse works of art demonstrate the ongoing influence of visual experimentation on Australian art. Dr Emily Poore is Assistant Curator, Australian Art. ‘Spectrum’ is on the Watermall, QAG, until 8 February 2026. Endnotes 1 Charles Nodrum Gallery, ‘Ti Parks, Number One, 1969’, 2002, <https://www. charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/artists/ti-parks/number-one/>, accessed August 2025. 2 Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, ‘Vivienne Binns: Documentary film’, 2022, <https://www.mca.com.au/exhibitions/vivienne-binns-on-and-throughthe-surface/#Documentary%20film>, accessed August 2025. 3 Michele Helmrich, ‘Fenestrations of darkness and light and endless becoming’, 2005, <https://helgagroves.com/web/wp-content/uploads/9-Helga-GrovesSelectedworks-Catalogue-Part-1.pdf>, accessed August 2025. 4 Linda van Nunen, ‘Patterns of experience: Sydney abstraction’, in Brought to Light II: Contemporary Australian Art 1966 – 2006 from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2007, pp.35–7. 5 van Nunen, p.37. Above An installation view of ‘Spectrum’ with Nigel Lendon’s Slab construction 11 1968 (Purchased 1994. QAG Foundation and QAG Functions Reserve Fund), QAG, July 2025 / Photograph: Nicholas Umek Opposite, clockwise from top left John Peart / Before Cook and Columbus II 1976 / Purchased 1976. Trustees’ Prize; a view of Lincoln Austin’s Interloper 2009 (Gift of the artist through the QAG Foundation 2010. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program), QAG, July 2025 / Photograph: Nicholas Umek; and Michael Johnson / Painting no. 3 c.1976 / Purchased 1976 ‘As with Nigel Lendon’s Slab construction 11 1968, the abstract art of the 1960s often made no allusion to any experience or subject beyond itself’
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