FINTAN MAGEE, THREE WORKERS, 2020
Location: 75 Patterson St (Mineworkers Institute)
Three Workers promotes unity between working people across industry, representing the backbone of working culture in Collie. The mural depicts a farmer with his dog on the right, and a miner seated on the left. The work, located on the Collie Union Hall, aims to promote unity across industries and working class solidarity.
The work is painted in a bevelled glass effect and is tinted with a red colour, aiming to emulate the stained glass across union halls and stone mason halls across the world. Stained glass is an integral part of both ecclesiastical and secular architecture and is an example of working craftsmanship and human achievement.
The work is painted with a split image effect, meaning the figures are abstracted, broken and disconnected. When you walk to the centre of the mural the figures come together to make a complete image. This encourages interactivity for the viewer and photography of the mural.
About the artist:
Fintan Magee is a Sydney based social realist painter, specializing in large-scale murals. Born in 1985 in Lismore, New South Wales, to an architect mother and father who was a sculptor, he started drawing at a young age. His earlier large-scale paintings often inhabited the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of the city, and today are found all over the world including in London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Moscow, Rome, Jordan, and Dublin among others.
Magee’s practice is informed by a profound interest in political murals, inspired by exposure at a young age to those of his Father’s native Northern Ireland. This is reflected in the socialist nature of his public artworks, which combine journalistic elements with public art. Magee’s work is driven by his recognition of the power of murals to communicate political and social viewpoints and thus divide or unite communities.
Drawing from personal experience and the mundane, his figurative paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment and explore themes of diversity, migration and transition, waste and consumption, loss, and the environment. His works exude an inherent sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books and the Low Brow art movement.
In recent years, Magee has solidified his position as one of Australia’s leading public artists and has travelled extensively, completing projects in countries across the world, including Belarus, India, Jordan, Spain, Tahiti, USA, among many others. His recent solo exhibitions are ‘Big Dry’ at Think Space in Los Angeles (2018), ‘Waves’ at Mathgoth Gallery in Paris (2017) and ‘Water World’ at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne (2016).
Images: Taj Kempe
THE COLLIE MURAL TRAIL
