My Invitation

 

My invitation to my next exhibition has been printed and I'm very pleased with the result. It's A5 in size, and I think this format is a modest but elegant dimension and it's amazing what you can get onto a small format.

The text reads as follows - 

Many of the ideas for these paintings were inspired by the environs of Ballarat and my walking through the rooms of my home. Sometimes it takes time to be aware that what surrounds you can end up becoming a painting. When the time is right, one can see the possibilities.

Some of the paintings were worked from life, others were painted in the studio from memory, but all of them are inventions that aim to connect with our world while at the same time being separate from our everyday reality.

For me, distances are more compelling to paint than things seen close-up. The vastness of a landscape beckons the eye to explore something beyond one's immediate attention. It's like space has its own mystery.

Occasionally the compositions of my paintings verge on formal abstraction, but this is not always deliberate, because something seen can instantly, and without thought, be presented to the eye and mind in an abstract way.

My main aim is to create images that are contained within their own light and air and contain a sense of quietude, a quality that transcends story-telling, the paint itself and its subject matter.

Charles Nodrum 40th Year Celebration

Charles Nodrum is currently celebrating his 40 years as a director of his name sake gallery Charles Nodrum Gallery in Richmond. It's also 20 years since I had my first exhibition at the gallery, so you could say it's a double anniversary. I'm also having my 6th exhibition there soon, titled Drawing on Light and Air, and I hope, with many more to come. 

I have always admired the paintings of a kiss by Gustave Klimt and Edward Munch and this painting gave me an opportunity to picture a kiss. It is a still from the film Cinema Paradiso (1988) directed by Guiseppe Tornatore but I wanted the main subject of the painting to be light, especially since light is what gives us the cinematic experience.

The painting (below) is included in an exhibition to mark this 40th year celebration along with many works by gallery artists. It will be an amazing opening with so many people expected and I hope the building will be large enough to contain the crowd! 

Charles Nodrum website has a detailed history of Charles and his career in the arts and it's an interesting read. 

Light and the Cinema, 2023, oil on canvas, 61.25 x 76.25 cm

Raindrops

The larger painting of raindrops was done as a variation of the smaller one. I wanted more rain on the water which demanded a larger format. The circles in the larger painting have been disturbed slightly by the movement of the water, as if to suggest that the rain has started in earnest. The larger painting was done entirely in the studio but simplified somewhat as the circular waves created by the raindrops are too complicated to observe. The smaller version was simplified too although it was painted en plein air. I don't think I would have done the studio version if I had not painted raindrops on water from life as this gave me an understanding of what to do in the second version.  

Raindrops on the Lake, 2024, oil on linen, 61 x 101.75 cm

 

Raindrops, 2020, oil on panel, 40 x 40 cm

Bushfire Smoke

It was during last summer that I was walking my cat, Alice, around the backyard. As soon as we walked out of the back door, I noticed how strange the colour of the grass was, a tint of orange washed over the green. I looked up at one point and stared directly at the sun and saw a yellow disc with a red ring on its perimeter. How was this possible I thought? But it was the smoke from a distant bushfire making its way across Ballarat which acted as filter so I could look directly at it. 

After our walk, I went into the studio and painted the sun and some clouds while my memory was still fresh and the next day I began to add more clouds and a hill which was painted en plein air. The small group of trees was something I also saw peering just over the hill so I put those in too. Sometimes, when painting en plein air you can notice something that you would not necessarily have imagined, like those trees. I added more colours over time, trying to choose the colours that would express something of what occurred that day.

Like all of my paintings, the images that you see are constructions of what I saw and experienced based on memories, imagination and observation. You could never record them with a camera because they never existed.

Bushfire Smoke, 2024, oil on linen, 35.75 x 50.75 cm