Pêssegos (Peaches) - Margaret Olley
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Óleo sobre placa - 50x65 - 1989
Margaret Olley's still life paintings from the 1980s exude a calm stillness and appear to be the artist's homage to the inherent beauty of simple things. Peaches is part of a succinct group of still life paintings from arrangements which Olley assembled atop her kitchen table, creating still life compositions using familiar jugs and compotes to display her beloved flowers, fruits and vegetables. In these works she sought an evenness of tone and subtle colour harmonies all bathed in a soft morning or evening light.
As her friend and admirer Edmund Capon observed of the artist, 'Still-lifes and interiors are her métier, and Margaret Olley is a part of that tradition, from Vermeer in the seventeenth century to Morandi in the twentieth century - two of her most admired artists - which finds inspiration, beauty and a rich spirit of humanity in the most familiar of subject matter.'1 Another artist long admired was French impressionist Paul Cézanne. It is the influence of Cézanne that is most prominent in the present work. Cézanne was recognised for modernising the still life, he became preoccupied with painting the same subjects over and over offering different perspectives, a trait that was clearly shared by Olley.
Olley was a great arranger of her renowned household 'clutter', most of which was collected on her numerous painting and study trips overseas through Europe, Asia and Oceania. From such a tangle of memento and diverse keepsakes she was able to pare back and edit her arrangements so that a balance and harmony was attained leaving only form, colour and light to shape the composition. Not only did she approach her subject with great sensitivity and appreciation for the unassuming beauty of the objects portrayed, she was able to capture a sense of silence and timelessness that resonates throughout works such as Peaches.
