Neapolitan Delight 1993 [lounge-room]

The main source for this substantial canvas is a lounge room template in Gold’s Instant Decorator, first used for Suparoom (1992). Here, however, the bland outlines of the source image are subjected to a riot of clashing colours and patterns, and almost all the sprayed line-work is in colours other than black. The result is a pulsating painting for which terms like “hallucinogenic” and “psychedelic” (often used indiscriminately in relation to Arkley’s work) actually do apply.

The stencilling which Arkley had begun to use extensively from the early 1990s takes on a key role here, using several different stencils from the artist’s studio collection, and there are flashes of unexpected illusionism, especially in the fire and its surrounds, imitating marble, metal and flames.

This work was purchased from Tolarno in 1994, together with New Room 1993. It was one of several Arkleys reproduced in the Danish journal Architekturtidsskrift (no.52/53, 1995/6), with characteristic poems on suburban Melbourne written by Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage); Arkley’s library included a copy.

Arkley also applied the title, possibly referencing a popular style of ice-cream combining different flavours in pastel hues, to Neapolitan Delight 1993 [kitchen].

Provenance

• Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
• The Sigg Collection, Switzerland, acquired from the above, April 1994

Literature

• Arkley & Humphries 1995: 97 (ill.; as courtesy Tolarno)