Born 1958, Chertsey, England

Tim Maguire arrived in Australia in 1959. Completing post grad studies at SCA (1984) and at Kundstakadamie Dusseldorf (1985), he moved to France and then to England. He is the winner of an impressive range of awards including; the AGNSW Dobell Prize for Painting (1989) and the Moet et Chandon Australian Art Fellowship (1993). Maguire is renowned for his large-scale representations of fragments of images from Dutch still-life paintings of the 17th and 18th century. The scale of the subject draws focus to the play of light and surface, and the layered process of his painting. Maguire developed his colour separation technique, after his explorations of printing processes.

He uses solvent “like other artists use pigment”. Between layers of colour, he flicks a dissolving agent over the works to “open the paintings up”, making them more abstract and unpredictable. The marks also evoke something of a photographic quality, the pixilation of an enlarged digital image.