Guy Grey-Smith

The two elemental forces in Guy Grey-Smith’s work, the structures of landscape and the physicality of paint itself, are powerfully present in this image. Circles, rectangles and triangles of indigo, purple, brown, orange, green, white, pink and violet all jostle and interact in a vision that is both monumental and vibrant.

This late work was made during the artist’s last year in Darlington in the hills east of Perth, where he had lived since the late 1940s.  In the following year, 1975, Grey-Smith and his wife Helen left the Perth hills and moved south to the majestic karri forests of Pemberton. There, he revived his wartime flying skills and was appalled by the felling of the forests and the scale of the destruction visible from his light plane. It was an awful sight for a man who spent most of his life living amongst, travelling through and working in Western Australian terrains, distilling his observations of nature “which is so strong and perfect in itself.”[1]

Text: Robyn Johnston