JOE FURLONGER

Joe Furlonger may be best known for his Australian landscapes, but he paints many subjects. Recently, paintings from the last thirty-five years were returned from Sydney after the death of Ray Hughes, creating for Furlonger his ‘own little retrospective’. Artist Profile met him in his studio on Furlonger Road, in the semi-rural hamlet of Samford outside Brisbane.

FURLONGER ROAD IN SAMFORD, QUEENSLAND is where Joe Furlonger grew up, growing carrots with his uncle. He returned here in 2001, somewhat reluctantly, after global travels and some years on the Gold Coast. Now, seventeen years later, he is rusted on to this place where he paints, grows vegetables, and lives with wife Heidi and sons George and Max.

Why did you become a painter?

I won an art prize in grade seven at school. Art was the only thing I showed promise in. At the age of seventeen I had