The abstracts in the Fairview collection carry some of the finest work by South Australian artist Colin Russell Gardiner (1937 to 2015) who was a personal friend of William John Calvert Murrell as they both resided in Stirling in the Adelaide Hills and they formed a strong friendship over many years.
West Australian abstract mixed media artist Carole Ayres is also held in the collection with a two part series based on her travels in the desert on the Canning Stock Route between Meekatharra and Alice Springs in the very early 1990s.
Victorian based artist Phyllis Faldon is also held in the collection.
Colin Gardiner
Born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1937, Colin Gardiner is a mostly self-taught impressionist and abstract landscape painter. He has exhibited his work in Adelaide since 1972. He passed away on 12 October 2015 aged 77 years in Stirling, South Australia. Gardiner started painting at eight years old and at 17 years started at the South Australian School of Art but left to qualify as an electrician. In 1972 he took up full time painting and worked under Polish/Australian artist Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski, including working on a giant mural Spacescope 1970 installed at the Adelaide airport in 1970 and now in storage at the Art Gallery of South Australia. He has produced more than 600 works of art.
Ayres, Carole Georgina - 1944
Carole Georgina Ayres was literally born during a bomb blast in the United Kingdom on the 19th June 1944 when a buzz bomb hit a hospital wall and her mother was blown out of bed. She arrived in Australia in 1952 and is a Western Australian decorative mixed media artist. In a 40-year career she has participation in nearly 250 joint exhibitions and 19 solo exhibitions since 1979. She initially studied shorthand at business college working with iron ore mining magnate Lang Hancock before studying for a Certificate and then Diploma of Art at Rossmoyne TAFE in Perth. In 1980, her painting Woman of the Desert was selected to represent Australia in the Royal Overseas Art Exhibition in London. She is also represented in a book Art Effects by Jean Drysdale Green, published by Watson Guptill New York which featured 45 prominent Western Australian artists. Her work is influenced by 17th century Japanese court figures and the desolate Australian landscape. Her work is held in many private collections, including the two-part series inspired by the Canning Stock Route Magic Hillside 1991 and Desert Trees 1991 held in the Fairview Art Collection in Subiaco, Perth.