Roger Kemp
Roger Kemp was born in Melbourne in 1908. One of the most significant and spiritually driven Australian painters of the twentieth century, he spent a lifetime developing a visual language of extraordinary consistency and depth — abstract, rhythmic, and charged with a sense of cosmic energy and inner light that set him apart from virtually every other artist working in Australia during his time. His work is immediately recognisable and entirely without parallel in Australian art.
Kemp studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School before spending decades quietly but persistently refining his vision, largely outside the mainstream of Australian art world fashion. His mature paintings are built from interlocking arcs, spirals, and curving forms that seem to pulse and rotate across the canvas — images of energy, transformation, and the movement of forces both natural and spiritual. Deeply influenced by his Christian faith and a lifelong engagement with philosophy and mysticism, his work carries a genuine sense of the transcendent without ever becoming merely decorative.
Recognition came relatively late — a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1981 brought his work to wider public attention and cemented his reputation as one of Australia's most original and important painters. His work is now held in every major Australian public collection.
His collaboration with Fred Genis produced an extensive body of prints — sixteen works in total — reflecting the full range of his abstract visual language. These prints were found unsigned and one off editions and will remain part of the Australian Printers Proof Collection.
Roger Kemp died in Melbourne in 1987. His legacy continues to grow. see more