Figuratively Speaking

Richard Watts talks with visual artist McLean Edwards about painting, prizes and childhood influences.

In the world of contemporary Australian art, where the conceptual and the abstract have elbowed the figurative and the representational out of the spotlight, Sydney’s McLean Edwards is proud to be considered unpopular.

"It seems to me that there’s a lot of personal investigation by artists of whatever the flavour of the month is. You don’t want to be caught up in a fashion, do you? It’s so didactic and arbitrary and utterly unengaging," Edwards says. "I find a lot of conceptually based work leaves me cold, but then I find a lot of figurative work is shit too," he adds, laughing.

The 33 year-old artist has his first solo Melbourne exhibition opening next week. The Revenge of Maggie Dubrovnik will comprise eight new paintings depicting young cricketers, a theme that is regularly repeated in Edwards’ work.

"I wouldn’t regard it as an obsession," he chuckles. "It’s a purely aesthetic thing. I just like the way cricket looks. Subjectively of course there are questions of identity in there as well. It gives my work a psychological hook, something that people can readily identify with."

Throughout our conversation (which is at one point interrupted when McLean’s cat stands on his telephone keypad: "She’s not called Trouble for nothing," the artist apologises afterwards once he is back on the line.) the Darwin-born painter is quick to defuse potentially explosive comments with a quick quip or a wry afterword. This sense of humour also informs his colourful, cartoon-like works, which are often described as offbeat and idiosyncratic.

"I’m pretty much a self-taught painter and was either too proud or too stupid to listen to anyone else," he says. "When a painting works – and for every one painting out there I destroy about a dozen or so more – I’d have to say the more idiosyncratic the better."

Having attended a boarding school that he describes as "a Catholic hellhole" as a child, Edwards says he turned to art as a refuge. "Mum and dad were diplomats and very far away. I was left to my own devices. I suppose in retrospect it must have been a very painful time, because there was very much an ‘I’ll show you’ sort of attitude in my conscious decision to become an artist at 12."

Edwards is now a successful figure in the rarefied world of commercial art galleries, as evidenced by the three salesroom records his work set in 2003, and last year he was a finalist in the much-derided yet still influential Archibald art prize.

"A lot of artists grumble about the trustees of the Archibald prize, who are scions of industry or masters of the universe or whatever, interfering in the art world. What are they in, cement or something? Artists don’t go to the boardrooms of North Sydney and Melbourne and tell them what to do" McLean Edwards laughs, "but I suppose any opportunity for the arts has got to be positive."

McLean Edwards’ The Revenge of Maggie Dubrovnik, Silvershot Gallery, Level 3, 167 Flinders Lane, Melbourne from May 31 – June 12.