Fly Artist

Russell Bowtell

The first telltale sign of Russell Bowtell’s prodigious artistic talent was noticed by his mother.

One day, not too many tantrums after his second birthday, Russell took a crayon and, on his parents’ freshly painted lounge room wall, energetically created a strikingly realistic and evocative depiction of the spaghetti he’d only recently tipped into the cassette holder of his father’s new h-fi unit.

Although his not so proud dad was incapable of recognising and applauding his son’s brilliance, his mother’s admiration was boundless, particularly during those periods of chemical-fuelled optimism immediately following her failure to remember to take her medication.

What made her all the more convinced of Russell’s genius was his extraordinary capacity to develop a thematic approach to his art and pursue it with unnervingly focused zeal.

Indeed the unusually early decision to make spaghetti the subject of his work was one he stuck to like bolognaise sauce to a moustache.

His innovative 1960 masterpiece, ‘Spaghetti on the pre-school teacher’s car door’ was but one example of the precocious enfant terrible’s ability to create art that was at once controversial and thought provoking.

“It makes you wonder what the hell is going on between his ears,” his father was often heard to shout.

‘Spaghetti on handbag’ (1961, nail polish on leather) is another good example.

Spaghetti Surprise – 1964 (Texta on wedding dress)

Spaghetti without metablls’ (1962 - biro on curtain fabric)

As are ‘Spaghetti without meatballs’ (1962- biro on curtain fabric) ‘Spaghetti Surprise’ (1964 – texta on wedding dress) and, arguably the most infamous of all his earlier works, ‘Spaghetti Graffiti’ (1965 – spray paint on retirement village entry statement).

In 1969, Russell held his first exhibition, ‘A Shitload of Spaghetti’ very close to the National Gallery in Canberra.

Both works, ‘Leftover Spaghetti’ (1968 – pencil on serviette) and the still life, mixed media piece ‘Spaghetti in a bowl’ (1968 –Spaghetti, in a bowl) were snapped up by his mother for a Nick’s Framing & Print Shop sales record of $148.50 each, including the frame.

The extraordinary career crescendo left Russell with a profound sense that there was little more he could achieve in the fine art world and, like so many over-confident individuals with his unusual level of talent, he soon found himself working in advertising.

Although there was consistent pressure (from his mother) to continue developing the Spaghetti Series

(which had spanned three decades and caused him to be spanked on no less than thirty-nine occasions), and to explore yet more ways of pushing back the known limits of the subject and his unique ability, Russell resisted steadfastly.

In fact it wasn’t until 1999, when he and Richard Clarke decided to collaborate on developing Fly Art, that Russell again pulled out his pencil and dashed off a near-instant masterpiece.

“What’s that, an impression of a boxed fly’s frenzied flight path ?” asked Richard on seeing the work.

“No, it’s called ‘Italian Staple’ and it’s my impression of the essential spirit of spaghetti – Are you fucking stupid or something ?” Russell responded.

And so their strange, often volatile and always mediocre collaborative effort began.

Russell Bowtell was once 27.