What do you paint or take inspiration from?
I find it difficult to pigeonhole my practice as it’s quite varied and seems to follow whatever it is that I’m engaged with at any given time. Each landscape, be it from Central Australia, Swan Bay, the RIP (entrance to the bay), Lake Mungo or the Flinders Ranges, requires a different response. I also enjoy painting portraits; this is intense and time consuming but it’s something I love. I always have a portrait on the go to balance my landscape practice.
How did you come to be a painter?
Sometimes these things creep up on you. Dissatisfied with working in a factory packing chocolate many, many years ago I began to draw instinctively. This lead to study at an undergraduate level with painting and drawing majors. Some years later I went on to complete a Masters of Visual Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne.
Where are you based?
I live in the beautiful coastal township of Queenscliff in Victoria – it’s not unlike an island surrounded by Port Phillip Bay on one side and the ever moody and seductive Swan Bay on the other. My studio is in a marvellous old brick building with wonderful light – I feel privileged to live and work here.
When do you feel your most creative?
I prefer to work early in the morning. I usually start at about 4am, working through until about 11am when the light begins to shift. I then go home, have something to eat, maybe a snooze then head back to the studio later in the afternoon. It’s curious, the high you may be on when you leave the studio about a painting only to return to discover that it’s absolute rubbish! It sounds strange but if a painting is giving me grief I will often wake in the middle of the night with a solution and head up to the studio to attempt a resolution.
What materials do you use and why?
It depends on what I’m working on. Normally oil on linen but depending on the series and subject matter it can be acrylic, watercolour or even house paint. I also like drawing into a work with charcoal.
What have you been working on recently?
I have just completed a body of work on a Central Australian trip from last year. The stunning East MacDonnell Ranges – this big saturated landscape is breathtaking but also full of nuance and variation. It was a challenge to capture this.
Pick three art world players you would invite to dinner.
Ian Fairweather – his visual language is unique, true and beautiful. A painters’ painter! Lucian Freud – he stayed his course, unperturbed by fashion but true to his own vision. An outstanding portraitist. Artemisia Gentileschi – an outstanding 17th century painter. The work Judith Slaying Holofernes is so powerful, all the more so when one understands her life.