Painted in Christchurch in 1968, after Fomison’s return from three years in Europe, this dark and disturbing image of a gurner – a man pulling an ugly face– draws on his first-hand study of 16th and 17th century old masters such as Morales and Caravaggio. It has the stark black and white contrast of Caravaggio and his followers, noted for their graphic depictions of saints and martyrs with dramatic light effects. Fomison, who had studied these images and others by Renaissance artists carefully, bought reproductions and later made copies of abject and frightening subjects such as the Dead Christ by Holbein. Fomison, having majored in sculpture at Art School, found painting a difficult technical process and at first was more comfortable with drawing. He recalled in 1974: ‘Overseas I had found a way of painting that is my way of painting, derived completely from my drawings. I had got on to the right track after being put on the wrong track at Art School.’ Rejecting colour and visible brushwork, Fomison drew his image in black on a white underpaint. He allowed the white ground to show through in the light areas while painting the background black so that it absorbs the shadowy areas of the head. This makes the grinning face emerge spectre-like from the darkness. It is as if a flashlight has been turned on in a windowless cellar and revealed this unforgettable vision close to us. Fomison wanted impact and he wanted his viewers to look hard at his paintings. He said in 1974: ‘to get a person to look for more than five minutes at a painting, that’s what it’s all about.’ Here he achieves that objective while creating something new and distinctive in Canterbury painting where regional landscape still held sway at local art exhibitions. As a person, Fomison did not fit comfortably into polite Christchurch society and rejected its values. His was an alternative lifestyle, outside the law, and fuelled by drugs on which he became dependent. He lived much of the time in dark spaces of the mind, where he felt an affinity with those outside society, the mentally ill, the deformed and those suffering from disfiguring diseases. Using photographs as aids, he made compelling and unsettling images like this example in which he raised troubling questions about New Zealand society and its values. With time, his art became increasingly critical and polemical, aiming to confront and question the viewer. (The inscription on the painting appears to be a dedication to a friend or acquaintance, or perhaps a gift.) Michael Dunn