artist statement

I have an enduring interest in realism -- in how to paint or represent objects realistically. While most of the objects in the paintings hold some meaning for us beyond themselves, their power is magnified by the process of painting them.

Objects are part of what we are. Through use and familiarity, the other becomes part of us. Red lacquer and blue and white china speak of the domestication of the exotic. Similarly, fruit, bowls and jars signify ritual, the abundance of daily life, and what makes the domestic sacred.

The series of untitled works of books and leaves can be about what we know, time passing, and the cycles of nature. The tower of books refers to the architectural form of the column, as it does in the work showing a tower of objects balancing, titled 'Stack'. 'Procession' draws in form on the architectural frieze and in motif, the French enamel jug, an aged and worn object used for pouring and washing, with its own simple beauty.

The column is an architectural fulcrum and the frieze a temporal one. The idea of decorative and architectural balance that is implied in the forms of the column and the frieze also carries with it the ideas of unbalance and chaos, that something is just about to happen. This is what is interesting about the genre, the contemplative potential in it, the suggestion of the kinetic in the static, the metaphysical promise present in the very words 'still life'.

Crispin Akerman, Recent Paintings, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, July 2009