detail from Glen Huntly Portrait
Oil on Canvas
100cmH x 76cmW
2017
Excited to say that I am a finalist in this years Portia Geach Memorial Art prize.
Opening night is next Thursday at the S.H.Ervin Gallery, Sydney!!
Here is some more information re the award and the exhibition here
detail from a recent painting
After School, Glen Huntly Street Scene
Oil on Canvas
76cmW x 100cmH
2017
It has been a busy few months and I have gradually been producing some new pieces of work.
I am currently working on my Melbourne paintings, as well as following the Tigers with some smaller A3 works (I will write about these in a separate post) and trying to slot in a few commissions here and there.
With my studio located about 14 km out of Melbournes CBD in the suburb of Glen Huntly, I am working with the local environment as my source of motivation to create. I started with my Melbourne works ten years ago looking at some of Melbourne's more iconic places. More recently have confined my subject to the street life within the Glen Eira municipality.
I began with some of the urban portraits I did of local people with at work, kids coming home from school and some of the local tradesmen I was acquainted with. This year I have zoomed out a bit and have been looking for everyday moments, vignettes of fleeting transactions between the people on our streets.
I am finding this is a great way to work and in having a studio right on a main road, in a shopping strip, I need only to step outside and take a wander in order to find my subjects, ideas and inspiration.
I have lived in this area for almost 20 years and I am seeing a constant shift and evolution in the way my suburb looks, lives and behaves.
The suburb has seen some big changes with the demolition of large homes giving way to apartment blocks. This of course, not being anything new; a short stroll through the streets will show you that such development clearly took place back in the late 1950's and 1960's.
Like many suburbs within a 15 Km radius of the city, Glen Huntly (and the neighbouring suburb of Carnegie) is loosing the classic family homes that once characterised the suburb. Large Californian Bungalows and Edwardian homes along with their sizeable backyards are literally disappearing from our streetscape. More people are living in smaller homes, apartments or flats and often with little outdoor space.
And so I find it really interesting to watch and observe the rich cultural variety of day to day life that unfolds upon the pavements and footpaths of the suburb.
My perspective is often from my drivers side seat as I sit out the often protracted time spent with the boom gates down at the Glen Huntly Rd. level crossing, as well as that of a pedestrian and a local resident.
You can follow some of these ideas and sketches as I develop them into paintings on my Instagram site.. lookatmelbourne
I recently read an article describing Glen Huntly as grotty and sleepy. Yes, it certainly needs cleaning up in places but I do challenge the notion that perhaps our suburb has little to offer.
If you would like to share your thoughts on our suburb Glen Huntly please do...with respect, naturally, leave a comment, memory or opinion.
