As the millennium arrived in 2000, Milan Mrkusich (1925-2018) continued to paint strongly into his seventies, just as he had done continuously since the mid-1940s, certainly with Gordon Walters the country’s leading abstract painters. In fact in that year 2000 he participated alongside Walters at Sue Crockford Gallery in Auckland in an exhibition of works from the 1950s. At this stage of his career Mrkusich liked to paint in series – some small, some large – often characterised by utilising a repeated arrangement of geometrical forms in paintings usually identical in size and medium, and in a variety of different colours and combinations. Such is the case with the small series painted in 2000, identified by date and differentiated by a number and a dominant colour – in this case: Painting III Red 2000. There were at least three other paintings in this mini-series, which recall though in simplified format the well-known Emblem series of the 1960s; the other known examples are Painting I Silver 2000 (The Millenium Painting), which has a somewhat different character from the others which are formally identical: Painting II Yellow 2000 and Painting IV Purple 2000, the latter two being reproduced in Mrkusich: The Art of Transformation by Alan Wright and Edward Hanfling (Auckland University Press, 2009). What the three works have in common is that all are painted in acrylic-vinyl on canvas; all have a wide black band across the bottom of the work; in all three cases the remainder of the painting is dominated by the colour named in the title (yellow, red, purple), apart from a small square of contrasting colour placed centrally towards the top of the picture. In Painting Yellow the small square is light purple; in Painting Purple, it is red; while in Painting Red, the small square is orange. In Painting Red 2000 (the only example I have been able to examine ‘in the flesh’), a noteworthy feature is the widely different paint application of the three constituent elements. The band at the bottom is even, unmodulated black with a matte finish. In the expansive red areas of the painting, by contrast, the paint is unevenly distributed across the surface in dabs, swirls and smears of pigment creating a lively and informal effect. The small square differs again; the orange paint is variously stippled, speckled or brindled in manner. The three colours in combination are like a sustained chord in music. Painting Red 2000 is an imposing and visually opulent work creating the impression of an artist in absolute command of his medium, knowing exactly how to achieve the desired outcome. PETER SIMPSON

Private Collection