Nick Cave (b. 1957), singer, songwriter and author, was born in Warracknabeal, Vic., and educated at Caulfield Grammar School , where he formed his first band, The Boys Next Door. In 1980, when Cave had spent two years at art school, the band changed its name to The Birthday Party and moved to London , where it significantly influenced other punk bands. With several talented recruits, members of the Birthday Party formed the Bad Seeds, whose first album was released in 1984. Cave has participated in a number of fruitful collaborations and has provided music for several films, including Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire . Cave himself co-wrote, acted in and wrote the soundtrack for the critically acclaimed Ghosts... of the Civil Dead . He has written several novels and a foreword to an edition of the Gospel according to St Mark. He continues to live in London.
Howard Arkley and Nick Cave moved in similar circles in Melbourne in the late 1970s, and knew each other slightly. As Cave left for London , Arkley, too, travelled overseas on several major study grants. Over the ensuing twenty years, he developed a distinctively psychedelic and incandescent airbrush style, which he employed in immaculately finished depictions of Australian suburbia. After representing Australia with such works at the 48th Venice Biennale in June 1999, he travelled to London to plan an album cover for Cave, and then to Los Angeles for a sell-out show of his paintings. He married his long-time partner in Las Vegas before returning to Melbourne , where he died suddenly a few days later. This, the National Portrait Gallery's first completed commission, was one of the last paintings he finished. Art critic Bruce James wrote that 'Arkley once knocked about with Cave, and shared a few of his indulgences. The portrait says that... it's a testament to complicity as well as comradeship, and among the savviest Australian portraits this century.' |
