Work in Progress

I started this new work over the weekend and am going to post up a series of photographs in chronological sequence as I work through the painting to its finish.

The camera does this strange thing of looking through the paint when its thin, so there are some not quite right things happening in the photo, like it looks more transparent than it is...anyway you get the idea...

I've been wanting to paint fish for awhile now as I've had some weird experiences of fish watching me at the beach, in shallow ponds in Hawaii and other places and in the last couple of years I've been keeping fish for the first time in my life. I've always been a bird and dog person but now its fish too. I just love the little guys.

Latest Astro

I've had this painting in my studio not quite finished for a few months now and I don't like to leave things undone, so I stopped working on it last night and called it done...



I wanted the painting to be eerie and to create a small sense of unease, eventhough the image is of a cute little plastic Astro Girl.

Cape Byron Lighthouse

I've been looking through some of the shots I took on the holiday, (its hard to share a camera between two snap happy artists but we sort of manage). I have a thing about taking pictures of lighthouses, the are always in such beautiful places, always a hike to get to and Cape Byron was certainly a hike well worth taking. So, here are three hand held pix in sequence as the light faded on the day...

Who's Who of Australian Women 2007

Got a letter in the post informing me that I've been listed in the 2007 publication of Who's Who of Australian Women ...They say its among 6000 others, am glad to be included for my varied endeavours. The book will be released on 27th April if you are passing a Library or bookstore....

Cowwarr Art Space Show

There I was thinking I was going to not have a solo show this year..I did say that didn't I?????

I've had a few casual conversations with a gallery that have ended in mutual must have a show one day and in fact the last conversation was regarding sometime in 2007...So a couple of days ago I got a call from the lovely director of Cowwarr, Carolyn Crossley, who said well, when are we doing the show? After a bit of to and frowing we've agreed to October/Novemeber this year. So, I'm going to be painting a few new large works and include a couple of paintings that I have in stock..

Am looking forward to it, the Gippsland is a great area, its one of the hearts of Australian Farming and has gone through a lot, 10 years+ drought, devastating bushfires this Summer, I don't know how they keep going.

Holidays

I've just got back from Byron Bay after first visiting the new GOMA in Brisbane...what a great purpose built space for contemporary art. The Anish Kapoor works were great to experience...the gallery guard was very protective in letting people in to see it which I found pretty frustrating. The 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art meanwhile, took up most of the room in GOMA and some in Queensland Art Gallery, the room of Jackie Chan film excerpts on a loop were just a hoot, I loved it! BUT best of all was one of my favourite artists, a whole row of Ah Xian's ceramics...they are remarkable and inspiring works. After all of that, went off to check out the commerical galleries, Jan Murphy, Philip Bacon, that Libby person's gallery, and met the very nice Bruce Heiser. Bacon's gallery has changed a little since I was last there, more the American model of lots of gallery assistants, mostly stuck looking at their computer screens wondering when I would leave the room! The girls at reception were really nice and the show by Robert Brownhall had sold out, there was a couple of really nice works in the show, the colour and light glowing from the paintings were very inviting.

The next few days I spent on the NSW Australian coast... I just loved Byron Bay and Bangalow, it was so warm and everything is so big up there! Big Spiders...biggest huntsmen spider I've ever seen...there were lizards everywhere...BIG lizards..loved them and wanted to bring one home with me...Mount Warning and environs are just stunning...Went out to the Tweed River Art Gallery and just was so impressed by the place, we don't have anything like this in South Australia, much to my dismay. Why don't we have two regional galleries apart from Ridoch at Mt Gambier...say, one in the Barossa and one in the Fleurieu region? The Tweed gallery has a lot of works on paper and some really good paintings in its collection.

I was also there to meet visiting New York artist David Kassan, who was giving a life painting workshop to some local artists. Went in to watch him give three 20 minute demo's from the life model which was great to see both the technique he used and the confidence with which he painted for such a young artist.