A Queensland Kytherian naïve artist on exhibition 27 March - 20 June 2010, Queensland Art Gallery
At the 2008 Kytheraismos Symposium in Kythera, Melina Mallos, the Curriculum and Education Program Officer at the Queensland Art Gallery, presented an entertaining paper on the naïve (or self-taught) artist, James Fardoulys, who started painting after he turned 60 years and who went on to develop a distinctive style that involved an infusion of Mediterranean colour and Australian wit.
Between 27 March and 20 June 2010, the Queensland Art Gallery will be staging a major retrospective exhibition on the life and works of James Fardoulys. Fardoulys (1900-75) was born in Kythera in Greece and came to Australia in 1914. In his youth he worked in various cafes in south-western Queensland, married a ventriloquist and conducted his own troupe of performers in the country. When the Olympia Café at Goondiwindi was destroyed by fire in 1931 he and his family came to Brisbane where he worked as a taxi driver for the next 29 years. After his retirement, Fardoulys began to paint seriously and by the time of his death had a substantial output of paintings and came to be recognised as one of the most prominent and widely appreciated naïve painters in Australia. As Melina Mallos has said, James was an "artist with a Greek eye".
Fardoulys was also quite a character. In the book by Charles Lehmann, Australian Primitive Painters, James talked about his early years growing up in Potamos when he used to run a donkey service for passengers disembarking at Agia Pelagia. He described how he often would carry important people around on his donkey and remarked that he made more money that way than when he later started working for wages in the town of Warwick in Queensland. James described Potamos as being in the centre of the island and that you could see Sparta from where he lived!
Melina Mallos has helped arrange a special viewing for Kytherians on Sunday 18 April 2010 at the Queensland Gallery and already a number of Sydneysiders are making the journey to Brisbane to see the exhibition. At the same time, it will be great to catch up with Kytherians from Queensland and hopefully this may start the ball rolling for a greater cultural interaction between the various Kytherian associations in Australia.
Mark your diary now and try to get to the James Fardoulys art exhibition in Brisbane on 18 April 2010 for what should be an unforgettable cultural experience ... and mingle with fellow Kytherians at the same time
2.00pm Thursday 8 April | QAG
Insights into the work of James Fardoulys with Glenn Cooke, Research Curator, Queensland Heritage and the artist's son, Peter Fardoulys. Free. No bookings required.
11.00amThursday 20 May | QAG
Join Glenn Cooke,Research Curator, Queensland Heritage, on a tour of the exhibition. Free. No bookings required.
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