After years of playing around with art, I went to UniSA to do my longed for Visual Arts Degree. Moved to Qld when I was almost done, and deferred my placement at Griffiths Uni till I got a part time job, which I didn’t.
Since mid 2016, I work full time as an artist and its working for me.
I seem to have settled for now on two things I love. I find the industrial, mechanical, complicated constructed things appeal to me. Steampunk intrigues me but my work is on the fringes of that. I am always photographing old buildings, rusty machinery in country town or city museums, or water pipes and fittings, construction sites and their machinery, I don’t know what they do or what they are called, I am just drawn to them. I collect old books of technical drawings on machinery, cars, planes etc. I like using holiday photos of anything, temples, housing, transport, and people from other countries.
And so I use all that to explore my first love, the inner world of each human being, our soul and questioning how well we tend to its care.
I have especially enjoyed life drawing groups for many years, and now find it’s a good balance against the small intricate work I do (much of it under a magnifying glass). So my second art love is the human body. I appreciate bodies of all shapes, well not all, if I have to draw another skinny “perfect” female model I will scream. Like old machinery, I prefer bodies with texture and history on them, wrinkles, curves, mysterious shadows and hidden nooks, strong muscles, scars and stretch marks, they are all so beautiful.
But you don’t get to draw that often, people are shy about their bodies when they shouldn’t be, and it’s a shame.
I also don’t get to draw bodies in the poses I want them to be in; art groups tend to be happy drawing bodies in restful poses rather than something more expressive. Don’t get me started on the “naked man holding imaginary bow and arrow pose”! But I get by and just enjoy the moment.
I also enjoy texture, and like burying paper under leaves, rocks and dirt, and then pouring watercolour paint or ink over it and letting it set for a few days, with a bit of watering every day to help it along. A good brush or gentle was clean and I have a lovely background to work with. And a stained back path.
This year I am working on a series looking at the mathematics of numbers 1-9 for an exhibition in 2019. You won’t see them online till I exhibit them first.
But I also will be doing a series on friend Steve’s 1970 Mustang, I have his 5 volume manual with a host of beautiful technical drawings to inspire me. They will come online as I get them done, along with other bits and pieces that I am working on.
Sometimes I have to leave a piece unfinished till the next part presents itself to me, usually at 2am. My work takes many hours to complete, hence my change to making good quality prints and selling them.
