1997

1997 was a momentous year for Arkley, culminating in a sequence of major successes. In August, he won the Kedumba Drawing Prize for a work-on-paper house in the lineage of his ‘Pointillist Suburb’ series. He devoted most of his energies during the year to completing the first version of his magnum opus, Fabricated Rooms, unveiled at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on 9 November. A few days later, the Benalla Art Gallery’s purchase of Arkley and Davila’s Blue Chip Instant Decorator was announced; and then, on 22 November, Ashley Crawford and Ray Edgar’s new monograph, Spray: the Work of Howard Arkley, was launched at Tolarno, together with a selected show of the artist’s work.

Fabricated Rooms, although generally well received in Sydney, met with a luke-warm response from John McDonald, one of several prominent Australian critics who has been dismayed over the years by Arkley’s suburban project – of which this work is clearly the summation. Despite his qualms, however, McDonald did admit to finding Arkley’s work ‘intriguing’, developing a thoughtful if ultimately negative critical response in his detailed review.

Spray, published by Craftsman House, is a substantial study exploring the complexities of Arkley’s artistic philosophy in considerable depth, drawing on a series of interviews conducted with him in 1995-6. The authors, who had collaborated on various earlier projects, and had both written enthusiastically on Arkley’s art in the past, respected his desire for a serious study of his work, while also representing the more playful and anarchic aspects of his approach. The book is a lively read, by turns journalistic and analytical, and includes a good selection of Arkley’s work up to 1996, including a comprehensive bibliography and exhibition details.[1]