Near Winter's End

 

Near Winter's End, 2004, oil on canvas, 76 x 51 cm

There are a lots of trees growing along the side of Lake Wendouree so this painting is a heavily edited image. The two trees in this painting caught my eye and the composition was arranged around them. I had the intention of creating a completely grey winter's day but during one of my painting sessions the clouds moved across he sky and the blue tint of a sunny sky revealed itself. I loved the contrast but even more than this, it seemed like the end of something and the beginning of something else.

Winter Light, Lake Wendouree

Winter Light, Lake Wendouree, 2024, oil on linen, 61.5 x 91.5 cm

I've painted quite a few pictures of Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. Although I've been looking at the Lake for years, it never loses its inspiration. The colours are often luminous because of the light that washes over its surface. I was interested in having a tree dissect the picture plane, because sometimes when one's view is slightly blocked it can make you look harder at what's there. Hopefully it has resulted in a more dynamic composition.

As always, I aim to paint an atmosphere that is still or serene, like a seascape by Seurat or an interior by Gwen John, two artists whose work I've admired for a long time.  

George Seurat's painting Evening, Honfleur, 1886, 

oil on canvas with painted wooden frame, 78.3 x 94 cm

Gwen John's A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris,1907-1909, oil on canvas, 31.2 x 24.8 cm

Bathroom Paintings

 

Sink with Running Tap, 2025, oil on canvas, 83.75 x 83.75 cm.

Bathroom, 1995, oil on canvas, 60.75 x 60.75 cm

I've always loved images of interior spaces because there is an aura of secrecy and intimacy about them. I've also loved the philosophy of making something interesting and poetic from the so-called ordinary things that surround us. The above two paintings were inspired by a number of artworks I've seen over the years. Vermeer's The Milkmaid and Lucian Freud's Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink have liquids that are forever being poured from a jug or running from a tap. It's like perpetual motion in paint. My two works were done 30 years apart which just goes to show that liquid streaming from a container of sorts is still an inspiring thing to paint.

Here are some artworks that have inspired my own paintings of still life and interiors and especially the two bathroom ones.

A detail of Vermeer's The Milkmaid, 1657?, oil on canvas

A detail of Lucian Freud's painting Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink,

1983-87, oil on canvas.

Cressida Cambell's Shelf Still Life, 2012, Woodblock, 90 x 138 5 cm

Autumn Sunset Over Lake Wendouree

This painting was is an invented picture inspired by the sun setting over Lake Wendouree. Every time I circuit the lake, its light and colours surprise me. The variety and beauty of nature is never ending and never palls and this fact adds to my amazement.

 

Autumn Sunset, 2024, oil on canvas, 36 x 45.75 cm

Magritte at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

My partner, Deborah Klein, and I have just returned to Melbourne after seeing an incredible exhibition of the work of Magritte. Hosted by the Art Gallery of NSW, it would have to be one of the greatest exhibitions I've ever seen.

There were so many iconic paintings, many of them from the Menil Collection in Houston. So many paintings engaged my attention for some time, much longer than I would normally look at a work. The crowds were steady but not overwhelming, to the point where I could stand in front of a painting and have it all to myself. 

I've always seen most of Magritte's works reproduced in books and I've always thought of him as a good technician but the the actual paintings revealed to me an artist of high technical ability. It just doesn't come through that way in books. The colours were exquisite and although you cannot see his brushwork, the richness of the colours elevated the work from being inert renditions.

The curatorial design of the show deserved high praise. The rooms were arranged in chronological order so his development as an artist was easy to contemplate. It was so interesting to see his early work and the amazing change that took place that made him the artist we have come to know. The lighting was excellent and occasionally a painting was hung higher than the line of sight to reflect the same high sightline of the composition. 

His ideas are wonderful. A mixture of humour, darkness and absurdity, but they seem to touch something within humanity. They aren't really puzzles to solve or even something to think about but more like something to feel. Although Magritte said his ideas are thoughts in paint, his thoughts make us feel more than they make us think.

Below are some of the images from the exhibition.