Deutscher and Hackett

In the final chapter of A Question of Balance 1974  - 1994, Ted Gott writes about John Brack's last four years and optimistic themes of replenishing cycles of life.

'Notions of play pervaded the watercolours and paintings which John Brack exhibited at Tolarno Galleries in September 1991 and September 1992, and in his final exhibition at Deutscher Fine Art in May 1994. In these last reflections upon the human condition, the human figure is reintroduced in the form of a manikin, a flesh-coloured stylization away from pure realism that was well suited to Brack's final allegorical concerns. In such lyrical works as Watching the Flowers, 1990-91, and Six Bouquets, 1991, the artist's wooden hands and manikins brandish and juggle either bunches of flowers or postcard images of them. Watching the Flowers depicts 18 manikins supporting an enormous bouquet of floral images which Brack had sourced from horticultural publications - preferring the super-bright colours of their reproductions to the hues of real flowers. The manikins stand upon a green gaming table, suggesting notions of both play and rebirth. It is a virtual rhetoric of sheer optimism, reinforced by the absence of the threatening floorboards which had predominated in the battle paintings, and by the upward flotation of the painting's entire composition.'¹

1. Gott, T., A Question of Balance: John Brack 1974 -1994, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2000, p. 37