Oliver Dowling Essay

Anthony J. Faulder-Mawson and Ursula Mawson-Raffalt

To experience the work of Anthony J. Faulder-Mawson and Ursula Mawson-Raffalt is to be part of a world that includes paint, words, numbers, dance, move­ment, music, sound, light, performance, exhibition, theatre. The word artist is too narrow to describe either of them as he is an artist/inventor/craftsman of paint systems and she is a dancer/inventor of text and movement. Separately they create each in his and her own world while sharing a common bond of creating places and situations where the work is mesmeric and spiritual.

They have many common bonds which were in place before they ever met. These now come together to create beautiful and tough work that deserves attention and time.

The work of Anthony Faulder-Mawson is simple to look at and minimal in ap­proach. Or appears to be simple and minimal but comes out of a complex and well studied series of systems and chance. Apparent contradiction. His early work references were Juan Gris and Jackson Pollock. Then he discovered Mark Rothko and Piet Mondrian among others. His respect for these artists continues to be present. And added to them were writers and composers of music and sound including Samuel Beckett , John Cage and Morton Feldman. He started life as an artist through the now considered conventional path of the art college. Being a non-conformist he soon set off on his own journey and discovered for himself the magic and mysteries of the visual world. He sees and is especially affected by what he sees and what he hears. And he also has to get behind what he sees and hears.

Ursula Mawson-Raffalt is a wordsmith and creator of movement. She started her dance life through the conventional path of a dance school in Vienna. She too felt restricted by convention and set off on her own path of discovery by exploring and creating works that push boundaries. In performance her classical training as a dancer is evident and she introduces words and a system of movement that responds to her words. It is at this moment that the creative impetus of both comes together. Anthony’s sequence of paintings and light works inhabit the space in their own right while Ursula’s movement and dance are separate and yet it is one whole.

Working independently they are rigid disciplinarians. His paintings come out of a well researched system of mathematics and binary systems and he has a detailed recipe for each work. Each time a painting is made according to his system it should come out the same and often will look the same but the layering and application of paint will be dependent on forces outside his control and there will always be subtle differ­ences. And this is ok by him as he is too aware of the creative process not to allow for chance. Her words and dance come out of her exploration of a world that is based on a quintessential essence shared by both.

Like all art the work of Anthony and Ursula comes out of art. They are passionate in their art references. They write very insightfully of their own work. Having attended performances of theirs in the past, I see that they are curious and not easily definable artists who create work of great beauty allied with tension and ease.

Oliver Dowling

April 2009