From England to Flemington - 20 years on from Makybe Diva's third Melbourne Cup

- Monday 3rd November 2025

ABC's Andrew McGarry spoke with me about horse racing and my painting of Makybe Diva.

'Like a spaceship landed at the MCG': The artist's view.

It wasn't just the racing world or the general public that was taken by the Diva's third Cup win.

Shane Jones is a Ballarat/Melbourne based artist - but he has had a love of horses all his life. He remembers walking with his brother as a young child up tp the stables of Hall pf Fame trainer Jim Moloney, where he later became an apprentice jockey.

'Visually, racing is stunning, because you've got everything - you've got the human figure, the horse form, the colours, you've got the landscape, all genres in one', Jones says.

Makybe Diva Winning Her Third Melbourne Cup, 2010, oil on canvas, 76 x 91 cm

Shane Jones loved horses from his earliest years, as an artist later in life he was drawn to put Makybe Diva's third Cup win on canvas.

His vivid oil painting, Makybe Diva Winning Her Third Melbourne Cup, captures the finish of that win, surrounded by a TV screen with a pause button in the corner as if someone was watching a video of the race.

The Diva is captured in full flight muscles working in perfect unison as she passes the line.

'I always watched the Melbourne cup, I was aware of her (Makybe Diva) from the start. To win three - I mean, if she only won two, I probably wouldn't have painted her', Jones says.

But three, that's off this planet, really - it was pretty amazing'.

Jones says the Melbourne Cup is special - both for the history and the hype.

'It's a handicap race, so the best don't necessarily win - in weight for ages races (like the Cox Plate) often the best do win, because it's level pegging', he says.

'But the Melbourne Cup's a bit like the Stawell Gift ... the best get handicapped to bring them back to the field'.

He was emotionally invested in the third win, but when did he decide to paint her?

'Afterwards, it was such a unique thing - it was almost like if a spaceship landed at the MCG, you be in awe ... that's like Makybe Diva winning her third Melbourne Cup', he says.

'It was this out-of-world-experience. I can't see any horse doing it again, because everything has to go right over three years'.

'It did for her. Phar Lap probably could have done it, but his first one he got badly ridden by the jockey, and the third one was weighted out of it ... Peter Pan (a two-time winner in the 30s) could have probably won three but he had shoulder trouble - but could have won three is not the same as actually doing it'

The painting is now held at the State Library of Victoria

Read the article here: HERE

 

Bryan Brown in Conversation

It was a privilege to be at Ballarat's Palace Regent cinema last night to hear Bryan Brown in conversation with Renee Price, representing Collins Booksellers. The main reason the event was on was to launch Bryan's latest novel titled The Hidden and to sell his other books, The Drowning and Jimmy Sweet.

But he talked about is early years, his upbringing by his mother and how he got into acting in the first place, acting in the theatre and in film. Acting is all about story telling and all these experiences fuelled his desire to eventually write his own books and invent his own stories. Even though he told us he was 78 years old, writing is a relatively new direction in his life. 

It was such a pleasure to have a brief chat with Bryan as he signed our two books, The Hidden and Jimmy Sweet. I'm looking forward to reading all of them. Deborah had already bought The Drowning which explains the two books purchased.

Bryan is such an engaging speaker, and I'm sure the entire audience, which was in the hundreds, would have stayed all night to listen to him tell us about his experiences and the people he has met. But he spoke with an energy that bought his words to life and engaged the attention of the audience.

 

Bryan and Renee

Bryan, Deborah Klein and myself

Letting us know about the event 

Collins Booksellers' window and Bryan's three books.

Photo credits - 

Deborah Klein, pics 1,2,5 and 6

Pics 3 and 4. Unknown photographer but she took the photo of everyone who purchased a book

Bedside Lamp

Bedside Lamp, 2025, oil on canvas, 92 x 51.25 cm

 

I've always responded to paintings that have a sense of privacy, intimacy or secrecy. This painting is mainly about the light from the lamp, but because it's a bedroom setting (the white sheets of the bed are barely visible at the bottom left) it might suggest an atmosphere of privacy and intimacy. Hopefully there is a sense that such a fragment of a room can suggest an entire room in one's mind.

Perhaps you could say there is a Japanese formality about the composition with its geometrical structure. I've always liked that aspect of Japanese design. 

Distant

Distant, 2025, oil on linen, 40.5 x 50.75 cm

 

The Tao Te Ching (Way of Life), by Lao Tzu, is a book of short stanzas touching on the nature of God. 

The lines in some of the paragraphs have resonance for me because it's these qualities that should exist in art, qualities that transcend subject matter. Every painting and drawing I do I try to capture even a little of what Lao Tzu described.  Here are 2 examples.

Stanza 4, paragraph 1 - 

The way is void

Used but never filled

An Abyss it is,

Like an ancestor 

From which all things come

Stanza 14, paragraph 2 - 

...

It stretches far back

To that nameless estate

Which existed before the creation 

All Things Must Pass

 

All Things Must Pass, oil on canvas, 73.75 x 61 cm

Occasionally I make realistic paintings that are not about what we see but about an idea that applies to the world we see. I tried to paint the candle so that it sits lightly in the hand, suggesting the ephemeral nature of existence. 

I wouldn't call it a surrealist painting because this image could exist naturally. For me, surrealism is going to a personal space that doesn't behave in the same way as the real world we share.

Drawings in oil paint

I've always admired the drawings of Holbein, Hockney and Degas. These drawings were done in thinned oil paint on oil sketch paper. I like the technique where the head and hands are drawn in light and shade and the body rendered in a more linear style. I used the oil wash technique in many life classes years ago, inspired by Degas' essence (thinned oil paint) drawings. 

 

Heritage Week in Ballarat

Ballarat has a HERITAGE WEEK every year in early May. Some friends of Deborah and I, Bryan Putt and Megan Finlayson, celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria during Heritage week. There is a statue of the Queen in the centre of Sturt Street and it acts has a gathering point for a group of us to raise a glass of tea (with a little something else) in honour of the Queen. None of us really care too much about royalty but it's an occasion to dress up and walk around the streets of Ballarat to add to the festivities on a Heritage day. We call ourselves 'Promenaders', and although at first I didn't really appreciate dressing up, I've developed an enthusiasm for it and I'm looking forward to next year's HERITAGE WEEK

Deborah looking very stylish indeed!

Me looking like a squire from an English village.

Megan as Queen Victoria

At the Queen Victoria Statue

King Louis IV and Jane Austen eras were also promenading!

A shoe shine! why not!

Quite a gathering at the OLD COLLONIST CLUB

At the Ballarat Train Station alongside a steam train.

Ending the day with a refreshment with Bryan and Megan 

at the Ballarat Train Station Cafe

Pages from a Sketchbook

I rarely make sketches as ideas for paintings but sometimes I do make a quick sketch, not only to see what an idea for a picture could look like, but also to get a sense of what size canvas might suit that idea.

Below are a few examples of biro and pencil drawings from my sketchbook. None of the ideas ended up in a painting except for the groom walking the horse, and the first high-wire walker, which became an etching.

 

Light at the Door

 

Light at the Door, 2025, oil on canvas, 91 x 61 cm

I was walking through the house recently when I saw a band of light stream across the floor and rise up the door. It seemed to suggest something alive wanting to get through the door. It also looked like an idea for a minimalist painting. Although some of my paintings are detailed, I do like minimalist images as well. Over the years I've come across two sayings, which are 'more is more' and 'less is more', and both approaches apply to my paintings, depending on what presents itself to my eye and mind. A good way to put it is to say that when I look at Holbien's paintings I don't wish for less and when I look at Morandi's paintings I don't wish for more. 

One Hundred Faces

 

For the past 6 years, Trudy McLauchlan has curated an exhibition titled One Hundred Faces. As the

pics show, the exhibition is displayed in her shop window which enables a 24 hour viewing. Trudy's shop has small handmade things that are sourced locally and internationally, from cards, puzzles, paper theatre models, animals, sketch books and etc. This exhibition is held annually and each painting is restricted to 10 x 10 cm, in keeping with the small things in the shop. Although there are 100 pictures of faces, the faces can be anything from humans, animals, birds or the moon. Anything with a face. My image is titled Woman in Gold and I enjoyed painting every brushstroke.

Trudy's shop, PLAYING IN THE ATTIC, is located in Talbot, a small regional town in Victoria, Australia.

Last 2 photo credits  -  Deborah Klein

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