CHARLES BLACKMAN

Charles Blackman's ability to see and describe the world from a child's point of view is unrivalled in Australian art. His immensely popular Schoolgirl series was the first to portray the mind and imagination of children, followed by the highly inventive and colourful Alice in Wonderland paintings. Both created worlds in which all things seem possible, where fantasy and fact rub shoulders, of innocence and experience, and darkness is not far from light.
In Schoolgirl at St Kilda Beach, the classic Blackman motifs are present – the large hatted single figure, vulnerable in an emptiness palpable with danger, the indeterminate twilight zone, and the emotional use of colour – or, in this case, the contrasting neutrals of black and white combined with beguiling tonalities of grey. Strikingly minimalist, initially to heighten the sense of isolation and tension, the painting reflects both the tough and the tender in its fascinating projection of the artist's personality. The visual rhetoric of the piles of the distant pier is like a low rumble of thunder, as sharpness of edges and a black shadow cast across the white dress (a metaphor of innocence), give way to gentler forms, tenderness of mind, and poetic moments, focused on the pale yellow flower quizzically peering round the curve of the hat.