GUY WARREN
"Flugelman with
Wingman"

oil and acrylic
on canvas
231x180 cm

Reproduction courtesy of the artist.

This portrait of close friend Bert Flugelman won Guy Warren the Archibald Prize for portraiture in 1985. It was initiated over a dinner and a few glasses of wine when someone suggested that Guy do Bert's portrait and vice-versa. Bert's portrait of Guy didn't make the final hang but Guy went on to win.

There are a number of elements in Guy's portrait that are of interest. The escarpment in the background is quite obviously the mountain at Jamberoo were Guy and Bert both own property. The wingman which appears has become iconographic in Warren's work since the early 80's. It was inspired by a stay in Arthur Boyd's studio at Bundanon when a large bird constantly flew down and tapped on the studio skylight. The image of flight was further reinforced by hang-gliders leaping off Jamberoo Mountain. Warren has taken this initial inspiration and turned it into a personal symbol with a multitude of meanings - escape, journeying and risk taking, the amalgam of man and nature and most obviously, the legend of Icarus, a metaphor fully realised in the major piece "Sky Drawing" which took the winged figure to monumental scale through skywriting at 14,000 feet by a small plane. The image against the sun then dissipated like the wax on Icarus' wings into the atmosphere.

Ironically enough it wasn't until he completed the piece that Warren was informed that the literal translation of Flugelman from German was in fact "Wingman".

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Artists to View

Bert Flugelman

Roy Dalgarno