Brack and Arkley have both used painting as a media to explore the Australian suburban experience.
Howard Arkley’s ‘Floral Exterior’ (1996), depicts a single story modern suburban house (This was a common topic for Arkley). He has used bright vibrant colours to create an upbeat mood to the work. The painting is very vibrant and has pattered surfaces that add to the energetic feel of the art piece. Arkley has used a cold base colour and then overlayed a floral pattering in a warmer palette. This adds contrast to the decorative theme of the painting. Straight and rigid lines have been used to paint the house while organic lines have been used to paint the foliage which also add contrasting elements to the painting. In the foreground a garden lawn painted in two main sections can be seen, a dark green with predominately darker patterning and a light green with lighter patterning. A pink bush and a letter box can be seen to the lower right of…show more content… He has used a monochromatic colour scheme with large areas of browns and dull oranges. Brack has created texture in the painting by using thick brush strokes in the foreground and mid ground, however hasn’t used texture in any of the houses in which he has used colour blocking. The foreground shows the beginning of the road which stretches through the mid ground and lower back ground. There is a single sparse tree in the lower right foreground, a lonely sentinel to the isolation and desolation of the environment being depicted. In the mid ground is a large area of emptiness with only two slim telephone poles and small rectangular sign. The background sits high on the horizon line of the painting and is the area of the painting most committed to the depiction of dwellings. Above the houses one sixth of the overall painting allows for a hazy polluted sky. The underlying feel of the painting is one of degradation of the natural environment and