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(can get rough.....)

please click on images for a slideshow:

"Bend, Don't Break"    110 x 200 cm     SOLD Commission

My favourite kind of sky! and some hills, and a twisty tree...

"Dark Journey"    101 x 101 cm   $1100

Finalist in Rotary Art Spectacular 2017

A sort of ode to Richard Diebenkorn I suppose, a painter I have just discovered though I have been working on the arrangements of flat colour planes for a couple of years myself.

Am I moving towards Abstract Expressionism? maybe......but let's just enjoy the journey. 

 

"Hope Springs Eternal"  101 x 101 cm     (now in a white box frame)  SOLD

Finalist in The Rotary Art Spectacular 2017

Finalist in Stanthorpe Art Prize 2018
It is a metaphor for my own personal resurgence of course, artists are so self absorbed!
At the top it is the cool effect of just white on the blue background, then more colour appears further down as the painting 'warms' with the bare branches about to burst into leaf, and a few happy birds too! Note the one green leaf, and so it begins...

Structurally it's the busiest painting I've ever done but it is quite large. The trees are formed by only painting the negative space around the vertical trunks, and filled with interlocking horizontal flat planes.

 

"Earth Spinning, the Sky Forever Rushing"     91 x 122 cm     

UNAVAILABLE  sadly this painting was damaged by moisture and is no more

Here are some galahs I saw outside Gatton, having a feed on the farmer's crop.

If you ever wonder why I take so long on a painting, these birds had to be 'found' in the white abyss of canvas and outlined with a knife, whilst continuing the background seamlessly. I don't pre-draw, it's a little challenge I set myself. It is my first, and so far only use of a white background.

 

"Ég er hrafn og þú ert úlfur" (I am Raven and you are Wolf)   91 x 122 cm      SOLD

Part of my Icelandic series, the title is from a poem I wrote after a dream, August 2016, two months after my first visit. There are no wolves in Iceland but somehow one did appear in the painting without me noticing!

"For I am Raven and you are Wolf,
let us wander together and taste the breeze.
When day's light fades and darkness absorbs us,
we will dance over mountains,
feed on night dew and dreams."

 

"The Winter of my Discontent Turned Glorious Summer"     91 x 122 cm     $900

Finalist Moreton Bay Art Awards 2016

Inspired by Illawarra Flame trees, this plays with horizontal strips of colour undulating across the canvas; even the trees’ outlines echo this movement.
Filigree branches contrast with smooth strokes of background hills, yet were not pre-drawn. They ‘grew’ organically whilst being painted around with a knife, leaving the original copper primer bare to flash Summer, as the light catches.

It is a figurative expression of my personal journey from a period of hard work and uncertainty, into an easing of constraints and growing confidence.

 

"Make every Cloud Your Slave"   101 x 101 cm     SOLD

One of my favourite subjects is stormy skies, and this was painted over a mica pearl background so the colours change with the light.

I particularly like it at night, here pictured at the Percolator Gallery in Paddington, Qld, and in the new owners home in the UK.

 

"Weep Not For Roads Untravelled"       61 x 61 cm     SOLD 

There is a path through the grove, but should you take it? or go around and over the hills....

One of the first paintings I did using separated colour fields (in the background).

"Tattooed Earth Cries River Tears"    61 x 61 cm    (in black boxed frame)  SOLD

Finalist Lethbridge 10000 2016

This is part of the Icelandic series, although it was actually painted from a dream I had before I visited the country... It was fascinating to come across the same scene when hiking in the highlands there in June 2016.

"Bend, don't break"     1100x 200 cm   SOLD ( private commission)

Using my favourite mica base which changes through the day with the light, the brief was 'a stormy sky, some hills, and one of those twisty trees you do'.

Mission accomplished!

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