Talking With Painters

Joe Furlonger is one of  Australia’s most respected painters, with his work crossing landscape, figures and portraiture. He's probably best known for a particular kind of landscape which he returns to time and time again. He paints those flat areas of the Australian farmlands and bush, the places where at first glance there doesn't seem to be much going on, where the horizon seems to stretch out forever. Places like Moree and the Darling Downs.  But he always seems to find a way to interpret those spaces which injects an excitement into the image and that invariably involves multiple layers of paint energetically applied. Furlonger's not concerned with traditional rules of landscape painting or the restrictions of gaining an exact likeness in portraiture. His methods appear to be instinctive in one sense but, on the other hand, also drawn from keen observation. What emerged from talking with him, though, was his constant struggle to avoid stagnation and his desire to always be looking for a new approach unti