Paris 2007
Born 1951
A keen student artist at High School, I developed a deeper interest through gallery visits and began collecting Australian art mainly from the 1930 – 1960 period.
The Matisse and Fauve exhibitions in the 90s regenerated my interest in creating art. The colour and the less than formal structure of the works appealed to me. A desire to develop my own work followed – a little prompting from my partner saw me surrounded by canvas, paint and all kinds of implements which I use to paint.
My formal art training consists only of a few short courses at TAFE. Being primarily self taught, I find I learn by observation and by application. I have lucked upon the scrape it on or off technique, this lets me build texture as well as layers of colour.
I like working in a free abstract manner with contrast between surface, sub-structure, colour and texture. Additives to the paint often mean that the brush is dispensed with, and painting knives or other hard edge objects are used to scrape the paint mixture. The method lends itself to recycle previously abandoned works.
I am inspired by 20th century art movements such as the Fauves, German Expressionists, American Abstract Expressionists as well as several Australian artists among my favourites. Vlamink, de Stael, Kandinsky, Chagall, Motherwell, Kline, Pollock, Soutine, Tapies, Tuckson, Tomescu, Heron, Mitchell, Nolde, Rothko, van Vliet and van Gogh. Blues and Jazz music is invariably the soundtrack to my explorations in paint.
A keen student artist at High School, I developed a deeper interest through gallery visits and began collecting Australian art mainly from the 1930 – 1960 period.
The Matisse and Fauve exhibitions in the 90s regenerated my interest in creating art. The colour and the less than formal structure of the works appealed to me. A desire to develop my own work followed – a little prompting from my partner saw me surrounded by canvas, paint and all kinds of implements which I use to paint.
My formal art training consists only of a few short courses at TAFE. Being primarily self taught, I find I learn by observation and by application. I have lucked upon the scrape it on or off technique, this lets me build texture as well as layers of colour.
I like working in a free abstract manner with contrast between surface, sub-structure, colour and texture. Additives to the paint often mean that the brush is dispensed with, and painting knives or other hard edge objects are used to scrape the paint mixture. The method lends itself to recycle previously abandoned works.
I am inspired by 20th century art movements such as the Fauves, German Expressionists, American Abstract Expressionists as well as several Australian artists among my favourites. Vlamink, de Stael, Kandinsky, Chagall, Motherwell, Kline, Pollock, Soutine, Tapies, Tuckson, Tomescu, Heron, Mitchell, Nolde, Rothko, van Vliet and van Gogh. Blues and Jazz music is invariably the soundtrack to my explorations in paint.