BLUE

Blue is a complex colour, capable of conveying different moods with only subtle changes in shade and setting - 

We can be heroes

I hope I’ve managed to capture some of that subtlety in these works.  

Drive in Saturday

As in the past I’ve chosen to use scooters, with their oddly animate quality, as the actors and observers - and I’ve kept the compositions simple...

Puberty Blue

...while venturing into surrealism, which is a recent thing I’m having fun with and might develop further.

Leaving Metropolis

BLUE is opening soon

You are warmly invited to...

 Saturday 18 July from 3-5pm at Lethbridge Gallery, 136 Latrobe Tce, Paddington, Brisbane.

The show continues until Thursday 30 July

Sandman Dreaming

Teasing out a new line of work here...more paintings to come, I think...

Sandman Dreaming - hot off the easel and on its way to the Summer Show at Lethbridge Gallery.

Our driver and riders long for the beach...

I've started playing with a double image approach after looking at Salvadore Dali's work recently. 

This work plays on the Holden's Sandman panel vans that depict stylised images that reflect the driver's interests. 

The surfing image I chose was taken at Noosa's first point - included are women surfing as a comment on the gender imbalance within that culture.

Wheels and water at The Redcliffe City Art Gallery

An invitation to show work in a public institutional setting is quite an honour. It's a foyer exhibition and I'm excited to have the opportunity to display my work during the month of November.
 

Wheels and Water is based on Brisbane Mods I knew in the 80s, who took day trips to the Redcliffe Peninsula to ride and relax together and share their love for their machines and the beach.  I always found the juxtaposition of the highly designed scooters and cars, and people, with those natural surroundings to be visually very appealing.


Here's some of the works in the show -

UNDER THE SUN - the clouds part and the scooters shine

DAY TRIP TOGETHER - driving contrary to the rule

 


ON THE BOARDWALK - basking in the sun

 
SUITED - Mod boys, looking sharp

 









You are very welcome to head along and have a look around - The Redcliffe City Art Gallery, during November. Monday to Saturday 10 - 4

STILLS 2014

MOD VS ROCKERS 

(Moreton Bay)

In STILLS I've tried to draw out what’s interesting and extraordinary in scenes that are otherwise ordinary and everyday.  The title is a play on words – it alludes to my intention, which is to capture appealing scenes in freeze frame, and to my creative process, which involves distillation of an image to the essential elements that make it distinctive.

This approach produces simple forms with clean lines and flat planes of colour.  I've used scooters and old cars for their inherent design appeal, and human forms are used sparingly – a key theme is how machines and structures can be as animate, or more so, than people.

SHE'S THE FACE 

(Stones Corner)

I SPY 

(nearly came to titled this He's the face)

WHICH ONE? 

(four classic scooters...which one to ride today?)

FELLAS 

(referenced from Fitzroy, Victoria side street for 

its gorgeous brick wall and blue, blue sky)

BYRON BAY FIRE STATION - MIDDAY

BYRON BAY FIRE STATION - MIDNIGHT

(same building, such different colour palettes)

SOLO

(a classic Lambretta)

UPTOWN DOWNTOWN

(she's an uptown girl, he's a downtown guy 

but here they are in East Village, NYC)

BABY AND THE WASPS

(sounds like the name of a 50s girl band. Instead,

 a Fiat 500 and gang of classic Vespa scooters) 

Special thanks to the Brisbane Lambretta Club  for allowing me to photograph their beloved scooters referenced in some of these works.

Clayton Utz Art Award

Finalists announced...

The company we keep

I'm excited and rather humbled to be selected for the Clayton Utz Art Awards exhibition 2013.

Thirty-nine works were chosen to hang - opening night on 3 October.

parked 2013

A Vespa sunning itself on the Scarborough esplanade will have a lot in common with one standing guard outside a Brooklyn stoop.  They’ll have a similar shape and stance, and the same oddly animate quality.

But there’ll also be distinctive differences – in the surrounding forms and colours and the quality of the light, and in the company they keep and the personalities they hint at.

Scooters and old cars can be like found objects - artifacts of time and place that take on the character of what’s around them and who owns them.

Brisbane and New York – the same but different.   

Scarborough Qld

Sunny Vulture street.

I've learned that chap with dog is Warwick (outside a different record shop to his own).

NYC East Village scooters

A classic Holden

Waiting for the Sunday beach run

...Spanish Harlem.