Exhibition themes Skate in Merric pot

Skate In A Merric Pot

When Boyd was a young artist living with his grandfather at Rosebud on Port Phillip Bay, he was struck by the extraordinary forms of skates that he saw washed up on the beach. As he said:

I used to watch the fisherman throw their kite-shaped skates up on the shores … Skates swim with a pink underside human-like face looking down into the water, and when these tender undersides were exposed on the sand, they seemed to symbolize absolute vulnerability.

Four decades later Boyd enjoyed painting skates, sometimes as subjects for still life, and at others incorporating symbolic associations. In Skate in Merric Boyd pot he pays homage to his father, Merric, who endured considerable difficulties in his battle with epilepsy and epitomised a sense of vulnerability and resilience.

Here the miraculous strange shape of the skate is set against a luminous deep blue ground. Close observation of the pale wings reveals the softest pinks, blues and yellows, recalling in miniature the evocative skies in JMW Turner’s paintings. The vessel in which the skate resides incorporates one of Merric’s favourite motifs, apparent in many of his ceramics and drawings, the rhythmic lines of tall eucalypts.

Boyd commented that the beautiful natural environment of Riversdale and Bundanon in New South Wales brought his father continually to mind.

This area of the Shoalhaven where the steep hills run down to the river remind me very much of drawings of my father. I was influenced by them from early childhood ... One of the first things that struck me … was looking into [the] great uprights of the massive forest, this was really an umbilical link with my whole past.

In Skate in Merric Boyd pot, the vertical lines of tree trunks provide a flexible support for the magical fluidity of the skate, while the vessel itself blurs with this vulnerable yet majestic being.