Studio Work ABOUT my art & others

The Bridge Gallery in Burnie is a temporary space for the Art Gallery while construction of the Arts Centre is underway.  We travelled to Burnie to pick up the  Oistre book  which was a finalist in the Burnie Print Prize 2025 , and encountered a splendid, awe-inspiring exhibition. There are 21, i think, artist books where each artist responds to each Afghan womans experience of living in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021. i have posted a few images i took on our visit (below).  The images are not 'professional' but give me a sense of the presentation and ideas that i enjoyed immensely. I love how each book presents as 'the same' however upon opening, each book has artwork entirely unique to the story of each Afghan woman.  The creativity and diversity of artwork and story kept me in the gallery, going from book to book, for nearly an hour.  Just marvellous.  Techniques included typesetting, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking...

 I have been creating works that celebrate colour, shape and texture which got me thinking about the saying 'art for art's sake'.  Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother)  by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1871,  via Musée d’Orsay, Paris This infamous portrait of Whistler's mother is generally known as 'Portrait of the Artist's Mother", while its official title - Arrangement in Grey and Black No,1  - suggests the painting is nothing more than an aesthetic composition of muted colours. Whistler also frequently painted foggy river scenes of the River Thames at night, a series titled Nocturnes . Rather than a conventional landscape painting, each Nocturne , a dreamy visual effect of light and colour comprising a flat, simple composition in a monotone colour palette with wide translucent brushstrokes.  Walter Pater claimed that 'all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music".  Whislter was drawn to this idea as...

  As a finalist this year, I am planning to head off to the Bay of Fires Art Awards to see the exhibition while its on from 9 to 12 June. I am planning to 'fill my cup' on an overnight short #getaway. This is a 3.5 hour drive from home with various stops along the way making it a long, interesting, enjoyable day. St Helens , on the East Coast of Tasmania is a beautiful area to explore I find getaways to be 'filling my cup' - replenishing mental, emotional and physical energies. On a #getaway one doesn't need to 'stop' ... its a way of doing, thinking, being on a different level but there is a break from daily cooking, washing up, hanging out laundry and other everyday things. I liken it, on a metaphorical level, to Kintsugi , The Japanese Art of Repairing Ceramics using Gold. #getaways are gold to me.  

 In general conversation (email), about artists and paintings, the name was mentioned within a block of a few others ... for some reason I copy pasted the name Joaquín Sorolla ... wow. What a find. His use of colour and light immediately hit me as I looked across all the images of his paintings on google. Drilling down a little I find he is called 'Spanish Master of Light'. 'Spain's Impressionist'. Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923). Born in the coastal city of Valencia, Sorolla is best known for his depictions of beach and water scenes. But he was also proficient in portraiture and landscape painting. We take a closer look at the artist’s life and work. read more I see/think when i look at these images. For the lights to work, the darks are just right. - both are so well handled as lights, darks, and together White is not white The colours are beautiful and clean The colours in the shadows 'read' colourful whilst kept in shadow. The composition of...

Many years ago when holidaying with my daughter and her young family in Sydney I caught up with exhibitions at the Art Gallery of NSW and i loved this image i took of my reflection in a Dale Frank painting. loved the painting/assemblage. The image, to me, speaks of a self portrait - artist looking and admiring the art. I usually walk through the gallery room quickly, scanning each one as i move through and then return to the ones that speak to me. This artwork was one of them - the image itself that you see here made an impression upon me once i got home and downloaded all the holiday photos. this other one is more like the day to day snapshot that is taken ... its still a self portrait but much less emphatic or meaningful, i think. It kind of tells all whilst the one above is mysterious and encapsulates the premise of 'self portrait with Dale Frank'. Whilst revisiting this memory I realise, in retrospect, i was drawn very much to this piece as i was experimenting with ...