Friday, August 30, 2013

IN THE OPEN AIR


Plein air painting is none of these things: comfortable, relaxing, pleasant. It's a bloody slog carrying boards and bags of supplies up and down steep bluffs and over the rocks, trying to balance the required materials on uneven surfaces, keeping flying debris out of wet paint, entertaining passing tourists AND dealing with the fluids: sea spray, solvent, sweat and blood. Ok there was no blood... not this time. But, God, the activity is deeply satisfying.

Yesterday I ventured to the rocks at the south end of Turimetta Beach. The place is stunning. The rocks themselves are beautifully carved by the sea... and by artists. I didn't notice at first but gradually around me carvings began to emerge: a bird, an old key, a face.

At the base of the headland, clusters of rocks form channels through which the waves crash. The tide was coming in which seemed to give warlike purpose to the waves... aggressively gaining ground as I respectfully retreated. 

I took some photos which I will post but they don't capture the scene. I realised that being there amidst the spray and the overwhelming noise and the perpetual movement gave me a different impression to the camera. The waves were bigger and more turbulent, they dominated the scene... the rocks lay down in submission and the sky hung back, relieved to be a distant observer. I couldn't capture this with the camera - though I know some that could. I will try to paint what my minds eye saw.

The sketches that I made will become the basis of my work for the Manly Arts Festival POP Art Gallery. It's to be held in a venue called Hemingways and I have been thinking a lot about The Old Man and the Sea. Compared to his hardships, my little adventure yesterday was a walk in the park.




Sunday, August 11, 2013

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING



I've www'd myself - on monitors near you!

This message is so wonderfully absurd in that my blog has now been imported into the website – so this post will be site within site. The Real Inspector Hound eat your heart out.

A QUARTET AT DAMIEN MINTON GALLERY



I will never grow tired of the transformative process of ‘The Hang’. Moving paintings from the studio and into the gallery – where they take on new life, new light and new perspective is unsettling and thrilling in the way that all new experiences are.

When I delivered the paintings, Damien and I laid them out and we talked about the general feeling of the works and how they related to each other but we did not discuss the hang… and in fact I hadn’t really thought about it. In the studio I had often situated the individual works in a particular relationship to each other and adjusted their positions along with their development… moves dictated by colour or subject or mood. It was therefore, a curious (and happy) moment to walk into the gallery on opening night and see how Damien had interpreted the relationships between the paintings and how he hung the show. 

The show was a wonderful success – not least due to the energy of the other three painters in the room. It really was very fine to show with Emma De Clario, Emma Walker and Becky Gibson – all such strong and sensitive and energetic painters. It sounds like a contradiction to put those three traits together but I am sure they would know what I mean.

Opening night was a blast – thanks so much to Damien, and my fellow artists, and my wonderful art loving friends who came along. Our little post show celebration at The Eathouse Diner was pretty spesh too.