Truly, an exciting painting and demonstrating the skills of an artist working near the peak of creativity. There's a bold synthesis of layered colour and sculptural form purposefully unified toward an aesthetic goal. Large and significant, this work's influenced by indigenous ways of seeing and the visual traditions of European modernism. While it delivers stunning beauty, much of its coherence comes from a tough constructivist drive. Lanceley started his career in a collaborative trio known as the Annandale Imitation Realists whose inspiration came primarily through the necessities and improvisation of inner city survival on limited means. They gathered recyclable material and urban mythologies from the gritty digs of ungentrified suburbs in the early sixties. By the eighties he was well considered and patronised by Sydney's art establishment. For unspecified reasons, his popularity faded and major pieces currently trade at a fraction of comparable works by his contemporaries. The auction estimate (AU$15,000-25,000) seems low for a work of such distinctive quality.
Price realised at Auction: AU$ 16,800.