Howard Arkley

The Age, July 23, 1999

Artist of the suburbs dies By GABRIELLA COSLOVICH and RAY GILL

Australia's arts community was in shock last night at the death of renowned Melbourne artist Howard Arkley. Police confirmed that Arkley had died in his Oakleigh studio of a drug overdose.

Arkley was best known for his vibrant, air-brushed paintings of suburbia. He had reached a peak in his 30-year career and was being celebrated on the world stage. He represented Australia at the 48th Venice Biennale of Art in June, and The Home Show is being shown at the Karyn Lovegrove Gallery in Los Angeles. In his recent works Arkley got the measure of the Melbourne suburbs in a way that gave us permission to celebrate what for most of us had been the mundane streets we grew up in. The rigid roads and triple-fronted monotony came alive under the spell of his paint.

Arkley's biographer and friend, Ashley Crawford, said it was a tragic accident that Arkley succumbed to an overdose. Crawford was mourning Arkley's death with Ms Burton and the artist's immediate family at the couple's Oakleigh home last night. ``Everyone is in tears. We're playing Iggy Pop's Lust for Life as a perfect memento to Howard Arkley's life,'' he said
http://members.optushome.com.au/stylofone/arkley/ageobit.html

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Welcome to The Home Show

The Artist of the Australian Pavilion Howard Arkley was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1951 and died there on 22 July 1999. The suburban landscape had been Arkley’s inspiration for more than two decades. His hermetic representations of the ‘ideal home’ had become iconic images within Australia and attracted significant overseas attention from collectors and international curators. Arkley’s international exhibitions include recent shows in Korea, Singapore and Germany as well as in the 1998 Biennale of Sydney. Arkley’s work is currently touring the UK in ‘Claustrophobia’ an exhibition that explores the resurgence of domesticity in contemporary visual art.

Howard Arkley was a major presence in the Australian art world and his exhibitions were significant events. He first exhibited at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, in 1975 at the age of 24. Since then his work had appeared in numerous exhibitions including Australia Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1981; Meaning and Excellence, Edinburgh Festival of Arts, 1984; Form, Image, Sign, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 1989; and Downtown - Ruscha, Rooney, Arkley, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 1995. In 1982 he painted a tram for the Victorian Ministry of the Arts, Melbourne, and in a non-stop twelve hour session, created an enormous mural on paper. In 1991 Monash University in Melbourne mounted a major exhibition surveying two decades of his work.

http://www.gap.net.au/pages/projects/Arkley/Frames/arkley.html








http://www.artnet.de/artist/645129/howard-arkley.html

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http://www.union.unimelb.edu.au/gpg/reunion/howard_arkley.html

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Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley
Ashley Crawford
hardcover colour illustrations

This is a revised edition of this much sought-after book on Arkley. His colourful paintings of suburban art in Australia have reached audiences all over the world. This extensive collection of Arkley’s art work, pictures, sketches, and monographs is a revealing insight into the artist’s world.
https://www.qag.qld.gov.au/secure/australian_art?cid=406&pid=1257