The sixties was a time of prodigious output for Michael Smither. Having moved into The Gables in New Plymouth, Smither was to embark on an intense and intimate period of the portrayal of everyday family life. His nearest and dearest were his subject matter: his wife Elizabeth and his first two children, Thomas and Sarah, both born in that decade. Thomas at the Bathroom Window has all of the hallmarks of one such successful early domestic painting. Smither recalls the bathroom at The Gables as being “pokey, narrow and green” ¹, and certainly that is conveyed in the colour and unusual angles of the composition. The work is also notable for its animation of line, feelings of sentiment and nostalgia, and close observation. Who amongst us with children in their lives, has not found their child under the curtain staring out at the world? It is a place that they can enter only when supervised and that is filled with possible excitement, adventure and danger. Gazing with boundless wonder and fascination, Thomas sees the garden hose lying like a coiled snake, green against the green grass. Inside, spare details give a clear vision of period and place: the chunky ceramic sink looming towards us in the cramped space, slightly tired with its gaping overflow hole, prim taps and broken plug chain. The cap has been left off the toothpaste: a source of much tension in many households! And the worn toothbrushes of varying sizes are hanging on their hooks, assuring us that Thomas is but one member of a larger family.
Smither is often quoted as saying he uses oil paint like modelling clay and Thomas’ trousers, the garden hose and the toothpaste tube are enlivened with three-dimensional writhing folds and twists of green, pink and blue. The citrus-fresh tones, oblique angles and checkerboard floor keep the eye circling between the interior and exterior spaces. EMMA FOX.
¹Trish Gribben, Michael Smither Painter, Ron Sang Publications, 2004, p. 66.