Live In The Moment

Busy week finalizing my new Artist Statements. Always hard getting it to read just right. Yes, have 2 new things on the go. To be shown together or individually. Live In The Moment is a small body of work - 5 paintings on Canvas with Japanese ink, water colour and acrylics. Also 2 fan shaped Shikishi (Japanese Board) in mixed medium. My second project, The Mortal Coil is a Japanese 2 Panel Screen, which can exhibit as an Installation. Mainly acrylics for that surface. I do have a wonderful iridescent blue pigment, which I’m excited to try.

The 5 paintings are completed in digital form, I find working in Procreate at the planning stage suits my digital background. All the colour decisions have been made, it’s really good knowing which pigments to mix. The predominate colour is blue, not sure who I’ve nicked that from, I’ve looked at a lot of art!

Just about to go on another holiday. Having dialysis on the Big Red Kidney Bus again. This time it’s parked at Phillip Island. Hoping for blue sky days so I can enjoy the ocean blue. My life certainly revolves around colour 💙

The Beauty Within, digital wip to be painted on canvas. Part of the Live In The Moment body of work.

Challenging Times

• Wow. Life is much harder. It took a holiday to Torquay in Late August, where I was able to receive my dialysis on a bus parked in a caravan park - to stop and reflect on the life I was living. The emotional grind has taken its toll. My art is still an active thought, my reliance on working digital so helpful now. I haven’t actually painted this year and had felt guilty when people asked me - what’s next? I have a general idea and a few involve painting ‘off canvas’. Bought a vintage Japanese screen that I will treat and then paint on. Big project. I’ve also completed public art for Victoria’s Big Build. Those digital ideas keep flowing. I find the blue sky and blue ocean lifts my spirits. Painting blossom trees, flowers and birds, Japanese designs with an Australian nature lens. These are my future subject matter but the motivations much darker and full of mortal peril. It’s not all doom and gloom. I spent September and early October admiring blossoms and feel quite well. Dialysis works! Going for a walk is no longer a trial 😊

The Public Art train keeps on rolling

Was really exciting when my animation Shared Spaces was selected for the Projection Wall in Sunshine. Three months, every night, over 3 buildings, from April-June this year. My artist mate and I were there the first night when it lit up! Brimbank Council were great to deal with, they refitted my Hume Winter Lights video to suit the space. Promotion was fantastic, I even had the centre spread in their A5 magazine. The Curator sent me copies of the Star Weekly that I was featured in too. They really have their shit together as an arts organization. Brilliant. Seeing giant pigeons was hilarious. There was a full moon on the first night and seeing ‘my’ moon move up the buildings was so special. Find it’s hard to know if anyone saw and liked my work. No public feedback, unlike paintings in a gallery. Still the public art gig is different and certainly pays well.

Exeloo Public Art Project

A long term project was finally completed. My own toilet block in a park in Broadmeadows. Photographed by Damjan Janevski for Northern Star Weekly (for an article about public art in Sunshine). So happy to see my rainbow lorikeets large. My first totally digital fine art - completed just before my health took a nose dive!

Last Christmas

Was asked by a curator at Hume Council to submit a design for a public art decal, a fun project that combined graphic design and fine art. So me! Only on the pavement for a short time…

Third Solo Show

Haven’t updated in about a year! Busy living as a Flaneur and coping with the trials of dialysis. Was so happy last November to have an opening at last! Shared the space with watercolour artist Ray Rattenbury. Friends joined me on the night which was great, just a little sad my Dad wasn’t around to see his family’s stories. Exhibition ‘Gold Mountain’ ran for 4 months and I sold 4/9 works. A success for my non-traditional landscape paintings. Also gave an artist talk in the gallery, getting better at explaining my process and motivations.

The Gold Mountain is almost upon me

I had a deadline for my next solo - Gold Mountain - a series of landscapes investigating my family’s colonial past in the Victorian Gold Rush…and it’s all going to plan. Finished the last painting end of September after a solid 4 months of painting over Winter. Nine works arrive tomorrow - all framed in raw oak. Exciting, as this is the first time my paintings will be framed! Working on the supplemental photos and frames for the gallery wall and the plinth next. Install 6 November, opening 9 November. My first solo opening too. There is another artist having a solo - so not alone in the gallery. The Council are interviewing me for a promotion - exciting days ahead…

Lyrebird Gully 91.4 x 61 cm acrylic on canvas framed ©2023

Hume Winter Lights Festival

Only one week to go - my first projection “Shared Spaces 2023” will be live! Have been working with a mentor for this project, video artist Sean Healy has been animating my art. We have collaborated on 4 themes for my projection and it’s looking magnificent. So exciting to have someone interpret my work and flip it in interesting ways. Also had a video interview with the media team for the Festival which was rather fun. Bring on June 17!!

In other news have started painting for my solo exhibition. Feels good to be working in the home studio, health challenges the past two months have been holding me up.

Publicity shoot for “shared Spaces” in Broadmeadows Town Park, 5 June 2023