Tim Maguire - Camelia Shadows

The relationship between art and nature underpins a long and extremely successful career for Maguire, both in Australia and overseas. His photographs of flowers, berries, and blooming remind us of nature's gorgeous but ultimately fleeting wealth, and they provide a welcome reinvigoration of contemporary art through various unique methods and intriguing techniques.

Several renowned anecdotes in classical literature explain the essence of the still life genre and account for Western paintings following this trajectory. At the heart of these legends is the idea that socially progressive art was best conceived through exact imitation of nature and that verisimilitude revealed the skills and ingenuity of the artist. In Maguire's instance, as in many others, mimicry and the basically photographic nature of his art are never done for the sake of it. The expansion of his formal language leads to a deeper and painterly style that, in the words of art historian Sarah Miller, 'draws the viewer to study the surface, yet the scale and illusionistic presence of the image pushes the viewer back to take in the whole.

Although many people are familiar with images of poppies, flowers and berries as part of a larger ensemble, Maguire boldly focuses on a single element and then blows it up to dramatic proportions. Nature's splendour is depicted in this way by the simplicity of a solitary fragment with a lush surface and delicate indications of applying layers of very thinly stained paint. This series of collagraph depicts a macro-depth image of the camelia petals that shimmer with luminosity.