Tim Johnson
Radio Birdman, circa 1980
acrylic on canvas
27.5 x 43.5
cm
signed, dated and titled
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Tim Johnson's painting 'Radio Birdman' is a portrait of the iconic Sydney rock band of the same name. The painting is part of a concentrated series of works that the celebrated Australian artist made between 1979 and 1983, while deeply interested in underground music scenes, both locally and abroad. Drawn to Radio Birdman's ethics of creative independence, Johnson repeatedly returned to working with the band's image. In 'Radio Birdman' their portrait is rendered in crude, silhouettes of silver. Here, Johnson translates the image into fields of colour, tangling the modernism of late 1960s colour-field painting with the hybrid cultural and visual spaces of postmodernism.
Provenance
The artist
Private collection, Sydney