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Lot Essay
"The archetype of fire is in Storrier's iconography a potent poetic symbol of life and temporality (one speaks of the vivifying fire in the blood which is the last flame of life), passion (the all-consuming fire of love), purification (the cleansing fire) and the expiation of guilt (the retributive fires of purgatory and hell). (L van Nunen, Point to Point The Art of Tim Storrier, Sydney, 1987, p.77)
Tim Storrier often manipulates his subject matter to create an ambiguous image, and this piece is no exception. Storrier painted this subject numerous times, each time experimenting with the colour, mood and the degree of disintegration of the burning object. The smouldering coals are juxtaposed against the night sky and the mundane becomes mystical through the thoughtful arrangement of the coals, in a shape suggestive of a crocodile, with the cracked surface of the coals mimicking crocodile skin. It has been noted that "Tim Storrier's art is about ambiguity and irony. It is never what is seems." (P McGillick cited in C Lumby, Tim Storrier The Art of the Outsider, Sydney, 2000, p.142)
Tim Storrier often manipulates his subject matter to create an ambiguous image, and this piece is no exception. Storrier painted this subject numerous times, each time experimenting with the colour, mood and the degree of disintegration of the burning object. The smouldering coals are juxtaposed against the night sky and the mundane becomes mystical through the thoughtful arrangement of the coals, in a shape suggestive of a crocodile, with the cracked surface of the coals mimicking crocodile skin. It has been noted that "Tim Storrier's art is about ambiguity and irony. It is never what is seems." (P McGillick cited in C Lumby, Tim Storrier The Art of the Outsider, Sydney, 2000, p.142)