We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Graham Fletcher / New Zealand b.1969 / Untitled (from ‘Lounge Room Tribalism’ series) 2010 / Oil on canvas / 162 x 130cm / Purchased 2010 with funds from the estate of Lawrence F King in memory of the late Mr and Mrs SW King through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Graham Fletcher
Graham FletcherUntitled (from ‘Lounge room tribalism’ series) 2010
On Display: Regional Touring Exhibition
Graham Fletcher is particularly interested in periods and perspectives that continue to shape understandings of Pacific ethnographic objects. His ‘Lounge Room Tribalism’ series depicts fashionable interiors of the 1950s and 60s, drawn from periodicals, design books and online resources, to which he has added Pacific objects, artfully displayed according to ideas of chic modernism. His paintings place Pacific cultural objects in new contexts, in a way that questions the imposed categories of ‘primitive’ and ‘non-primitive’ in Western society.
Fletcher’s paintings draw on a history of modernist appropriations of Pacific art, which had a major influence on Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism. His fictitious rooms for individual masks, clubs and other artefacts are rendered in thin paint with chisel-edged brushes that provide the represented objects with a strong presence.
Graham Fletcher lives in New Zealand and he makes paintings of different living rooms that all contain tribal sculptures and masks from the Pacific Islands. He explores how Pacific ethnographic material is collected and displayed in museums and private residences.