JOHN COBURN

If you were to ask an Australian art collector to name their favourite abstract painter from this country then I would guess that most would answer John Coburn. Like the works of other well known artists – such as John Olsen, Tim Storrier and Robert Dickerson – mature John Coburn paintings have a very distinctive style which is easy to pick out once you have seen a few examples. Coburn is not however an abstract painter in the pure sense – but for that matter is anyone? His shimmering shapes echo the distinctive small hills of the Australian landscape that stand out in such contrast to the vast flatness of the desert. Coburn also had a great ability to evoke in visual form the strange feeling of evening light and the abstract harmonies of music.