Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Collection of the artist
Private collection, Perth

EXHIBITED
David Aspden: Recent Paintings, Realities, Melbourne, 8 - 24 1986 (illus. front cover)

RELATED WORK
Forty Baskets Beach, 1983, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 195.0 x 164.0cm, private collection


Curator Anne Ryan in David Aspden, The colour of Music and Place, notes, 'Aspden's earliest paintings were landscapes, and his surrounding were integral to his work throughout his career. It must be stressed, however, that his response to place was not mimetic but rather allusive and poetic. His work was suffused with the world around him: the dramatic movement of light and shadow over water and foliage or across canvas and paper, and the rhythms and syncopation of the jazz he loved to play in his studio. The Stimulus of new environments and his tendency to immerse himself in a place gave his work fresh impetus, and the majority of his series were either in response to where he was living or to his travels. Indeed, as the decades passed, his work became increasing subjective and referential, with observers noting parallels between his paintings and natural phenomena like clouds, leaves on water or autumn colours.

Coastal subjects were of recurring interest, particularly the allusive qualities of water and light. Aspden lived by the water at various times in his life, most intimately when he moved in 1978 to Balmain on the edge of Sydney Harbour in a warehouse that was open to the weather. He described it as 'like being in a boat really, living right here on the water... because you're always in tune with the elements, with the natural thing going on out there'.'