Flight 1969

Rita Angus made this oil on canvas called 'Flight,' and, look at that strange blue! I mean, this is not naturalistic painting, and I think that's the point. The paint looks smoothly applied, no visible brushstrokes. The canvas must have been primed so the paint could glide, and then she delineated those hard-edged shapes, including a very unusual dove form. It's so stylized and surreal, like the artist's memory has been distilled into essential forms. I can imagine Angus standing before her easel, carefully mixing colours to achieve just the right tone, lost in thought about mortality and the spirit. Graveyards, boats, a dove – are all these symbols of a journey? A journey of the soul, maybe? I see echoes of early Renaissance painting, but also a very modern sensibility at play, like she’s in conversation with artists across time. Painting lets us see and feel things in new ways, and Rita Angus lets us into her vision of life, death, and, well, flight.