Introduction (I)
I Dream I am in Fergus's paintings ...
... I move through the paintings floating on the colour and light which glow from inside the frames with warmth and vigour and occasionally turbulence and anxiety. Sometimes the paint is fine and easy at others, so thick that it is the wave turned by the prow of the tug, the steam blasting out the funnel of the steam engine, the petals of the enormous bunch of carnations from one of his many admirers or the duchess lovingly restored that belonged to his father.Beautiful, manly, portly and sensuous men also float about with men giving each other backrubs, kissing, caressing -- some naked showing off strong
penises and bottomly arses, others clad brightly in plaid, spots and stripes with hats
and bright eyes, broad rosy faces and strong chiselled chins. They prance and fish and dance and ride trains and boats, drink thick tarseal coffee and smoke Gitanes after languorous meals
and glasses of ouzo or brandy or gin. They tickle and head-butt and frolic and cry and moon and get angry and relax and enjoy each other.
Flowers overflow and launch all the spaces. They fill rooms, decorate dressers, benches, spill out of vases, sprint from valleys seen from trains, balance corners and transform post-modernist architecture. They're daffodils and roses, daises, carnations and japonica. And the smell of them seeps from the rooms and spaces and windows. It's a scented heaven and valley and mountain top where nothing fades and everything is smelled and sniffed again and again and savoured. With the flowers are railway bridges in the distance of places like Manuka Gorge and Houipapa, Otago or sad handsome men mourning the end of
Where the flowers are not present there are other people and patterns. His father of the Oreti River bridge glares out all Presbyterian glower and bad humour, and Kim sings "Go to sleep, Go to sleep Molly ..." to his daughter, and Raymond, his dentist with wife Maggie and their children smile happy to be Fergus's faithful patrons and minder of his bite and good friends. There's Hilary and Ian, and Janet Paul and her family with a youthful Hone Tuwhare swimming and Hattie the redhead flamboyant in a pink dress and irresistible Chas with his furry chest.
And asserting themselves are the settings, the landscapes from another era when you got the 190 from Dunedin and had steaming cups of railway tea on the Balclutha platform at am. Or the boundary fence of the family farm at Owaka, two cats smiling in the foreground. The Central Otago hills golden and parched. Kaikoura railwaymen's cottages seen from the train at the Kaikoura upgrade. Island Bay from a basement flat with the African Queen drifting past Taputeranga. The Hokusai Mountain which Ella is buried facing, the best view for eternity. The tramcar at McKay's Crossing. The cosiness of Wilson Street, Newtown. Cloudy Breaker Bay and optimistic swimmers.
And filling the air as background and inspiration and accompaniment to these paintings are Ella and Dinah and Billie and Benny and Mahalia and Bunny and Louis singing and playing music. They're old friends who've been painted and listened to and cried with and partied to and entertained with and loved to. They're a versatile and exuberant bunch in their melancholy and joy and they still put a bounce in Fergus's step and stroke even after all these years of faithful listening.~ Mary-Jane Duffy
Works of Art Advisory Officer
Department of Foreign Affairs, New Zealand