New Year New Works
Dick Frizzell
Bach Soap
2009
oil on canvas
400 x 500mm
At a glance three small paintings by Dick Frizzell suggest a more stoic side to his painting practice. His interest in still-life was renewed following his move from Auckland to the Hawkes Bay in the early 2000s and has continued since. Although rarely staged or set up, in the traditional sense of a still life, his arrangements rely on the chance encounters of everyday life. In these three works his every day subjects – a bulging enamel teapot and teacup on the counter; a bowl of used soaps; a stylised dog statue with painted vase – are oddly reminisced in these snippets of everyday living. It is these quirky combinations that imbue these works with an archetypal Frizzellean charm. Interestingly the dog in Vase and Dog is predated by another still life, Still Life with Yellow Dog (1985) in which the same dog features.
