Coolie c.1949

Painted in Cairns in north Queensland, Coolie demonstrates Fairweather’s further progression into abstraction through an increasing tendency to integrate human subjects into the overall scheme of the work. Although the figure remains legible, a sense of perspective and depth no longer appears important. It was at this time that the artist experimented with the motif of the ‘coolie’, drawing on his memories of China to capture a suffering man with his head bent and body weighed down by the load he carries. Possibly a corruption of the Chinese word kǔlì, which means ‘bitter toil’ in English, the racist label is no longer used.