Acclaimed
artist Bea Maddock AM studied at the Hobart Technical College in the
early 1950s before travelling to London, where she attended the Slade
School from 1959–61. Coming to prominence in the early 1960s, her
longstanding career spanned ceramics, drawing, printmaking, painting and
installation, with her subject matter often exploring existentialism
and humanism. In February 1983, Maddock’s home and studio in Victoria’s
Mount Macedon were razed in the Ash Wednesday fires, one of the
deadliest bushfires in Australian history. She was forced to flee, with
decades of work destroyed. Using the technique of photo screenprinting, Fleeing figure
imbues a haunting sense of eeriness. Maddock inscribed on the work,
‘The figure in studio overalls shows me feeling the night-time glow of
approaching fire.’ She created many self portraits titled Fleeing figure in response to the traumatic event.
Gift of David Archer 2016
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