In partnership with Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, 1301SW presents a major exhibition that spans Arkley’s diverse practice, showcasing painting, sculpture, installation, and works on paper – some pieces shown in Sydney for the first time in nearly a decade, alongside works from the final year of his somewhat brief but prolific career.

The exhibition draws from key moments in Arkley’s oeuvre, including his sparse White Paintings and works on paper of the 1970s. Influenced by philosophy, science, Eastern spiritualism, and the masters of the monochrome, these early developments in abstraction are an exemplary example of Arkley’s masterful airbrushed gesture, devoid of the artist’s hand.

Among the exhibition’s highlights is the final work in Arkley’s luminous exterior house series. The evolution of his approach to figuration created a dynamic tension between representational and abstract portrayals of suburbia. Reflective of 1980s and 1990s real-estate advertising, his house paintings amplified their superficial gloss through pattern, colour, and repetition. Similarly, his portraits of mass-media figures combine satire and playful parody, all the while revealing his ongoing engagement with the imagery of consumer culture.

Seamlessly merging ornamentation with abstraction, utilitarianism and decoration – such as his final furniture installation Homezone (1999) – Akley’s work belongs to art history and aspects of everyday, bridging the formal qualities of modernist movements like DeStijl, Bauhaus and Minimalism, merged with garish motifs of home interiors. Works like Console (1999) extend outward, presenting a simulacrum of a retail ritual, before reverting to pure pattern. Arkley’s layering of bold colour and intricate stencil creates an optically charged moiré, celebrating the brilliance of the banal, highlighting the cyclical relationship between art and the everyday.

Howard Arkley appears courtesy of the Estate of Howard Arkley and Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art.