STAUNTON 1992.026

Brisbane artist Madonna Staunton’s method of ‘painting without painting’ saw her bring salvaged objects into harmonies of shape, colour and texture. Her battered and faded materials are marked with traces of their former lives, lending emotional resonance to her compositions. 

Staunton’s Assemblage with plank 1988 is constructed from folding chairs, wood from a house-painter's scaffold, a record cover, and a stretcher that once held a painter’s canvas. Together, the objects create a pleasing, abstract rhythm that invites contemplation. One chair tilts towards the other, suggesting a dialogue: perhaps the conversation revolves around the nature of art – as indicated by the canvas stretcher and paint-splashed plank; or the cosmos – alluded to by the cloud forms that dance across its surface. The record sleeve belongs to Paul Simon’s 1976 album Still crazy after all these years: with its inclusion, Staunton offers a wry nod to the intriguing nature of her composition and the challenges of an artistic life.