Focus On: Geoffrey Proud

Often quirky and verging on the surreal, Geoffrey Proud's paintings in oil and pastel are like fractured fairytales. Depicting a world of innocence with a sometimes ominous edge, Proud's paintings are fantastic and bizarre. His choice of subjects is broad, including children and childhood narratives, flowers, still lifes and nudes. Alternating between expressionist impastoed brushwork and sensitive detail, he experiments freely with vibrant colour and varying textures. The highly glazed surfaces of his recent oils give his scenes an ethereal and otherworldly quality.

Proud has won numerous awards including the Sulman Prize in 1976 for a painting on perspex, and the Archibald prize in 1990 for his portrait of writer Dorothy Hewett. He has exhibited consistently in all state capitals since 1966 and is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; many State and regional gallery collections; Parliament House collections in Canberra and Sydney; Artbank; IBM collection; and the Elton John collection, London.