Irises Fever Bloom

In Irises: Fever Bloom, flowers unfold in hot shades of coral, saffron, red and peach against a field of vibrant vertical stripes. Dark outlines and patterned petals give each bloom a bold, graphic presence, while layers of foliage and honeycomb details create a richly worked surface.

This is a garden experienced through colour rather than botanical accuracy: abundant, decorative and emotionally charged. The painting captures the intensity of flowers at full bloom, transforming the traditional floral subject into something contemporary, maximalist and joyfully excessive.

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Leon Fernandes is a richly expressive painter with a deep interest in psychological and spiritual themes. From his longstanding series of hilly landscapes to his more recent embroideries, he is always challenging preconceptions about subject matter, colour, and media. A queer artist with an atypical mind, his work has extraordinary emotional range; he investigates the world with a combination of brutal honesty, intellectual curiosity, and pure joy. Leon draws strongly on his mixed European and South Asian heritage, repurposing Catholic and Hindu iconography and fearlessly hybridising the sacred and the profane. His depiction of Krishna smoking meth outside the Imperial Hotel (Krishna in Erskineville, 2017) provoked a heated public conversation about the role of art and artists in Australian culture. Leon’s approach to canvas is just as unrestrained, using oils, acrylic, spray paint, machine embroidery, and found fabrics to produce richly textured and layered works.

He lives in Newtown, Sydney, Australia.