The Privilege of Art
- Colin Lanceley

‘To look at Colin Lanceley’s work today is to be reminded that artists need not be prisoners of the present but can make art for all time…

 Lanceley’s deep aesthetic absorption is implicit in the lyrical paintings he made in the early 1980s. There were no overriding themes in these late works. Like Matisse, Lanceley had decided that beauty could be an end-in-itself, and a more potent force than any artistic ‘statement’.

 To see these works again, in a world in which so much contemporary art has become neurotic, self-conscious and proscriptive, is to be reassured that an image can be a celebration of the world, not an obligatory critique. For Lanceley there were so many wondrous things that captured his attention he had no inclination to go looking for negatives. While the world will always throw obstacles in our path, it’s the privilege of art to provide moments of pure joy.’

 -excerpts from the catalogue essay ‘Colin Lanceley: The Privilege of Art’  by John McDonald, 2023

 John McDonald is art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald & film critic for the Australian Financial Review

Read the full essay via link to catalogue