"It Was a Strangely Happy Day"
A SELECTION OF PAINTINGS FROM THE EXHIBITION: IT WAS A STRANGELY HAPPY DAY
2011 EXHIBITION AT ANITA TRAVERSO GALLERY
Title: "The green tree frog is on the deck, watching me through the window. Just watching." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 60 x 60 cm SOLD
Title: "Our lotus has its third magnificent bloom. The petals will only last a couple of days before they fall." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 60 x 60 cm SOLD
Title: "Today I can cross the bridge and get back. It’s been a weird week. Watching the flooding on the news." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 76 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "I leant over the fence, as you should in situations like that, and exchanged pleasantries." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 152 x 122 cm SOLD
Title: "Another 200 - 300 mm of rain is forecast over Christmas. Yikes. Our ground is already saturated." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 76 x 152 cm $3500 (plus GST for Australian residents)
Title: "Frogs have taken up residence in the luxury pond Chris made for them. They plop, plop, plop all night. I have to sleep with earplugs." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 100 x 210 cm SOLD
Title: "Soon. I can feel it stirring soon." Medium: Oil on linen Size: 100 x 210 cm SOLD
Title: "Our new pond attracts dragonflies which hover over the water like helicopters and willy wagtails who dance on the logs catching their breakfast of insects." Medium: Oil on linen Size: 93 x 165 cm SOLD
Title: "I used Grandpa's desk to write on." Medium: Oil on linen Size: 122 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "I chased Vanessa down the street last night. It was funny. She invited me in, showed me her garden and gave me a beer." Medium: Oil on linen Size: 122 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "We share such a beautiful friendship. Where each of us has something to offer in support of the other through thick and thin, joy and sorrow." Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 78 x 150 cm SOLD
Title: "It's nothing new. We've been through it before." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 122 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "He offers me emotional support like no one else can." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 72 x 91 cm SOLD
Title: "Wasps take detours through the house. I'm amazed at their sense of direction and skillful maneuvering through the small bathroom window." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 122 x 91 cm
Title: "Dusk is full of bird life here. Cockatoos, kookaburras, lorikeets, parrots, water geese, ducks and galahs make appearances across the broad sky and then take refuge in the trees." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 76 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "It was quite sad, reliving those last days with Iain; how bubbly and gorgeous he was in the car-trip to visit Simon. I must always make time to see friends instead of worry about work so much." Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 122 x 152 cm SOLD
Title: "Dave and Bec had a girl!" Medium: Oil on linen. Size: 122 x 152 cm $5000 (plus GST for Australian customers)
Artist Statement
"It Was a Strangely Happy Day"
Solo Exhibition at Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne - 2011
During a visit to the Tate gallery in London a few years ago, I stumbled across a room of William Turner’s paintings unlike any I’d seen before. Thin, mostly translucent washes of yellows, pinks, blues and browns formed landscapes the painter was famous for. Only these works were different. They looked like under-paintings. There was hardly a wisp of detail; instead, the luminous washes of colour bordered on abstraction, precursors to Rothko. I was transfixed for the short moments we had to spend in the gallery, yet those paintings have lingered, forming a kind of revered, hazy, memory of an uplifting and inspiring art experience.
That room of paintings, along with the work of Howard Taylor, with his shimmering studies of the Australian landscape, have percolated in my visual memory since. There’s something to be said about ‘less is more’. In my case, I actually was doing an underpainting when the resulting canvas, hanging on my studio wall, begged to be left alone. The limited colour, lack of detail and streaky brush-marks produced a mystery. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I still don’t. And I liked it.
The paintings' titles once again come from my diary. They trace my inner thoughts and the changing seasons on my one and a half acres in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, where I’ve planted fruit trees, herbs, veggies, and natives. The titles reflect my learning experiences as the garden develops, inspires, teaches and grows. Juxtaposed with the soft, abstract, landscape-based imagery, I like the way these diary excerpts create more mystery, as they allude to snippets of my day to day life with the backdrop of garden-like dreamscapes.
Want to See More From My Portfolio?
THESE LINKS LEAD YOU TO MY OTHER EXHIBITIONS
