JEWELLERY, DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS AUCTION Tuesday, 12 March 2024 - 10:00 AM start

Dick Frizzell (b.1943) 'Big Guy',

Lot Details

enamel on board, signed, entitled and dated '82. 1005 x 1005mm. Note: Dick Frizzell’s Early paintings were inspired by American culture and featured comic strip heroes from Batman and The Phantom, but after a trip to the United States in 1978, he decided to focus on local subject matter and New Zealand’s popular culture for his inspiration. His ‘Backyard’ series featured paintings of gardening implements, washing baskets and gumboots with each object isolated against a plain coloured ground. Following that he drew on signs and characters from his immediate urban environment in Auckland presenting alongside popular images from advertising logos like Frosty Boy, the smiley Fanta orange face and the Four Square Man. ‘Big Guy’ belongs to this body of work and features a montage of images based on hand painted signs for milkshakes, ice cream and chicken alongside images plucked from advertising for products including a hamburger, a snow freeze (Frosty Boy) a milkshake and spaceman packaging from children’s confectionery. These commercial signs and logos are painted alongside local figures whom Frizzell captures consuming commercial products - an adolescent drinking a can of Coca Cola, a bearded, middle-aged man ordering takeaways at a counter and a yellow Auckland bus filled with consumers journeying through an urban landscape dominated by advertising signs. The seductive glossy surface of the work is created using enamel paint, commonly used for painting house exteriors and Frizzell’s use of this medium subverts established, serious art and narrows the gap between artists, sign-writers and house painters.