Shoot point 1967 is a major work from a pivotal point in Australian artist John Peart’s (10 December 1945–2013) career. Peart displayed remarkable artistic talent from very early in his life, born in Brisbane in 1945, he commenced his studies at the Brisbane Technical College in 1962, his only formal training, and left for Sydney to pursue his career the following year, while still a teenager.

Shoot point (illustrated) complements not only other shaped canvas works in the QAGOMA Collection such as Tony McGillick’s Arbitrator 1968 (illustrated) and Normana Wight’s Untitled 1970 (illustrated), but also the cool subtlety of Robert Hunter’s white paintings (illustrated).

John Peart Shoot point 1967

By 1965 Peart had held his first exhibition and as he explored various styles and approaches, he maintained an unwavering focus on abstraction. His move to Sydney coincided with an increasing public and critical appreciation for colour field and geometric painting, and he brought an individual approach to various modes of abstraction.

During the late 1960s, Peart’s work became increasingly refined and monochromatic. His interest in Minimalism and painted objects grew and this striking shaped canvas, Shoot point can be attributed to this brief period, which lasted for only a few years. Shoot point and the other six works in the series all depended upon a central triangular canvas to which three parallelogram extensions propelled outwards in an angular Y formation. Each was painted in a single flat colour, including pink, yellow, blue, orange and white, which added to their pronounced physicality and energy. In 2004, Peart described the thought processes behind his excursion into shaped canvas works:

. . . the canvas could be stretched over any kind of shape and became a painted object rather than a flat surface. I felt I was dealing with a ‘reality’ of space and volume rather than illusions of depth. Illusionistic space is inevitable with paint on a regular flat surface.1

In 2004 curator John Stringer wrote: ‘In design, these works continued to explore the centrality, radial dynamic and sense of rotation that characterised his previous paintings’.2 However, Shoot point is unique within this brief series as it also indicates a direction towards Peart’s subsequent group of works, which also engaged with Minimalism and came about, as he described, from ‘the need to clear the decks’.3

‘Peart’s mature work has to a great extent been disciplined, clarified and conditioned by his early encounters with the rigours of Minimalism’.4 Following his inclusion in ‘The Field’, the landmark exhibition of hard-edge abstraction in Australia, hosted by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968, Peart secured several major art awards and grants, enabling him to travel to New York and then on to England, where he remained for six years before returning to Australia.

Tony McGillick Arbitrator 1968

Normana Wight Untitled yellow-green 1970

Robert Hunter No. 4 untitled painting 1968

Angela Goddard is former Curator, Australian Art to 1975, QAGOMA
This text is adapted from an essay first published in QAGOMA’s Members’ magazine, Artlines

Endnotes
1 John Peart interview with Sumana Viravayong, in Renee Porter (ed.), John Peart Paintings 1964–2004, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown, New South Wales,2004, p.16.
2 John Stringer, ‘Radiant Haze’, in ‘John Peart Paintings 1964–2004’, p.28.
3 Porter, p.16.
4 Stringer, p.29.