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Nuisance Grounds
mixed media on panel, 152.4 x 406.4 cm, 60 x 160 in


Following the disbandment of the Royal Art Lodge and the sale of their final major work, Garbage Day, to the Folkwang Museum in Essen – a lasting testament to their collaborative success – Neil Farber has turned to his solo projects with renewed energy and a refreshing originality. Clearly thriving in the creative and psychological space it offers, he has come to produce one of his most significant works, Nuisance Grounds, which standing at just over four metres in length, is a masterpiece of composite ideology, conflating ideas, techniques and thematics recurrent throughout his oeuvre.

Without the routine of collaboration that characterised Royal Art Lodge production, Farber’s ideas and approach have expanded, moving past the refined accomplishment of the wittily-painted tiles to a broader and more powerful expression of colour, line and texture that is all his own. The tiny and tightly-packed figures, have grown in size, and exist now with room to breathe in a newly simplified pictorial space.

Combining a multitude of techniques and always eager to explore new ideas, Farber’s recent work pushes and stretches the boundaries of painting, as he works upon a specially-prepared ground taking thinned paint in a way similar to the absorption of ink by paper. He draws upon sources of all kind, Native American and East Indian among them, grounding them with references to his own life and experiences: Norwegian forest cats or ‘wegies’ reside next to the inhabitants of his local Assiniboine Zoo; mysterious creatures lurk around a pile of lingering snow, a remnant of the Winnipeg winter; and a curious ‘God’ creating his own set of rules sits atop the ‘nuisance grounds’ in the bottom left-hand corner, a colourful collage representation of a local rubbish dump.

As a work which exemplifies Farber’s technical competence and explosive imagination, Nuisance Grounds remains a critical work in the discourse of contemporary art practice, and a fine example of the mastery attainable by this one individual. Farber deserves to be recognised as a pioneer in his own right and with works such as Nuisance Grounds leaving his studio, one is assured that such recognition cannot be far behind.

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