2103 and early 2014 update..still life, florals, vanitas, and Dutch masters.

It's been ages since I have posted on my blog..(where does time go!!) ...and I am now going to update a few photos of my latest body of work....however, firstly I want to briefly explain how I arrived at this new work.

After my creek project where I had collected, cleaned and kept buckets of plastic items retrieved from my local creek, I had the intention of utilizing these objects for subject matter for still life paintings. I intended to make them contemporary vanitas works highlighting the threat of some of our urban habitats due to the plethora of plastics. "Still life ..silt life". I began painting with my usual immediacy, but felt my results were rather poor and inadequate. I looked at many contemporary artists but eventually went back to Matisse's work ...his use of colour, his flattening of the picture plane; and the use of pattern etc. The vanitas theme pushed me further back  in history to the Golden Age of the Dutch masters, and in particular the still life genre..... I was in heaven with the voluptuousness, flamboyance and sheer technical brilliance of these paintings and it was here that I decided to stay.

The paintings I have listed today are the results of my attempts to learn some of the glazing techniques of the Dutch still lifes;  some of the subjects have been appropriated from  small sections of the old works; some from my sketches and photos.


"Roses, tulips and buds"..One of the first of my larger paintings..oil on canvas, 120 x 90cm



Some of my paintings in my studio...in various stages of completion...the largest is 120 x 90 cm.

Oils on canvas..each 90 x 90cm. The first two are finished but the third is unfinished..will probably morp into something quite different in the end.

Subject is a study of a section of an old Dutch  painting..will have to look up original artist's name (sorry!)

Unfinished work..120 x 90cm..oil on canvas. I will probably paint in an opaque background..just feels too recessive at present.

"Bauhinia"...approx. 60 x 70. oil on board. Completed and painted from photos I took. I incorporated a glazed dark background reminiscent of theDutch painings, and the bee is from a Renaissance woodblock..a reference back to my inspiration.

This smaller painting is still a work on the easel..I took a series of photos at a local nursery. Here I have cut in the background with an opaque salmon colour...gives a much more contemporary feel. Will be putting a bug in somewhere.

A couple of my palettes...love some of the colours. I reuse old corflute offcuts for my palettes as the white background is so good to work on ...also a bit of recycling:)

 I hope you have enjoyed my photos and I will be back sooner than later this time!!

Oils and inks

I have been doing some paintings lately using inks as an initial grounding on the canvas and then overglazing with oil colours. I had done quite a few experiments with the ink on paper first, trying to find a dispersing agent for the ink. Some success with water and detergent but when transferred the process to canvas, it no longer works. I think the absorbent quality of paper renders the results quite different to the smooth canvas surface.

Ink and oil on canvas..90 x 90cm

 The paintings below are destined for a decorator market..florals were requested.
 Inspiration came from photos I had taken, as well as from the repetition of motifs in fabric and wall paper patterning. I particularly love the wall papers of Florence Broadhurst..haven't utilized any direct motifs from her but have maintained a very deliberate 2d look on the canvases.
These have been lots of fun to paint, and quite a holiday from the more cerebral engagement with oils. Now the sun is out again, I am on a quest to photo beautiful flowers, bugs and birds.

Magnolias..ink and oil on canvas..90 x 90cm

Ink and oils..90 x 90cm

Ink an oils..1m x 70cm

Holiday snaps

I haven't been blogging latey as we have had a month in Europe..a wonderful time but I am not going to bore you with all my holiday photos (I went a bit serserk with my i phone)  so am going to list a few  that for one reason or another, I still find appealing. Here goes...

Spices, dried flowers, scent, indigo etc in a Dubai souk. 

Armani and other "designer"bags in the delapidated tenement windows of Indian Dubai.

Roses trailing in Chieti..a very pretty little walled town in Abruzzo Italy..one of the oldest towns in Italy.

Love the window boxes and buttenut paint...Chieti.

     Italian fruit stalls sell direct from the farmer, and I really have to admit
that the taste is phenomenal...and the colours...wonderful

Whilst dining at a sidewalk cafe in Ravenna, there was a bit of a commotion in the piazza opposite..a demonstration against the mafia.
(I am  presently reading the book Gomorrah, an indictment against the present day Camorra in Naples. The author Roberto Saviano subsequently had to go into hiding in his own country, and is under constant police protection...he never sleeps more than two nights in the same place...he is a wanted man by the mafia. This has been his life since the book was published in 2007 when he was only 28...high price to pay for his journalism.)

One of the trabocchi along the Pescara coastline..these are very antiquated fishing houses that
 are found no where else.

Pretty poppies on the way to Venice.

We are all so familiar with the images of Venice, but I caught the bleaker side of this city with
this shot taken a bit down from San Marco's plaza...shades of my local creek.

The walled city of Dubrovnik and the wonderful waters
 of the Adriatic.

The red roofs of Dubrovnik taken through one of the gun openings
 in the rampart walls.

Corfu..my feet in a tank of bacteria eating fish..supposed
 to destroy odours and other unwanted matter from feet.
Tickled!

Katakolon colours..gorgeous.

A Katakolon fishing boat up on land having a new coat of colours.

Parthenon

Acropolis...Lots of dogs, big ones..supposedly to protect the ancient site.

Very lazy and well fed Parthenon pooches!

Mykonos..I love the Cycladic architecture..all white
 washed including patterning on the concrete floors and
footpaths.

This was a prayer wall in Mary's resting place (?) in Ephesus, where the passerby can write their prayer on a piece of paper, tie it to the wall, and after one month, the priest comes along  and blesses them. The papers are then destroyed and the wall made bare for more pleas. My daughter read one prayer which said "I want an ipad"..consumerism collides with spirituality.
Thought this wall would make a great interactive art installation.

Sublime texture on an Ephesus pediment.

Temple wall at Ephesus.

What can I say here..the sign says it all!! Outside Ephesus in Turkey.

Doorway to heaven..Santorini..what an
amazing green..and who said "blue and green
should never be seen"....
Oh yes..an old nun in one of my primary school art classes.

Picture postcard Santorini.

Pompeii...hard to imagine that the intensity of these colours
 have lasted nearly 2,000 years.

These three dogs had great fun lolloping up and down
 the streets of Pompeii..then stopped here for refreshments.

The grandeur of Naples.

Legacy of an illustrious Neopolitan past

Photo taken around the corner from the two above
 photos..rubbish caught between a couple of
 traffic barricades.Naples really does have a garbage problem.

Singapore on the other hand is so pristine and immaculate.

Well what then? Chinatown in Singapore.

And what were these..I think dried grubs of some
 sort..didn't have time to ask the store
 owner inside as our bus was coming.

Ending on a final "pretty" note..a delicate
 orchid in at Raffles Hotel.

Richard Dunlop; Ghost Net basketry.

I took a stroll into the valley the other day to see the latest exhibition  at the Jan Murphy gallery. Richard Dunlop has his new works up and they are wonderful...full rich luscious colours against  dark black voids. The works are large and exciting and his glazing technique employed throughout the exhibition recalls the old masters. The subject matter is varied..from violins to fish to flowers, but there is a sense of the old vanitas theme running thoughout ...this is especially evident with the smaller works of the hanging birds..the birds are cropped out of the picture frame for a contemporary take on the subject, but death and finality are overwhelming. Some of the other works such as Reef Arrangement recall early natural history investigations...collection, selection, display. It also raises the environmental question of how soon will the 'mundane' flora/fauna of our times be objects for modern Wunderkammer, the ornate display cabinets housing curios of scientific and natural history enquiry.

Richard Dunlop

Richard Dunlop

Further along Brunswick street, I dropped into Artisan to have a look at the exhibition "The Long Tide"...Ghost net basketry made by 22 indigenous communities in the north of Australia.

Aly de Groot, Basket grouping, 2011.(from Artisan website)

Last year we were at the Laura indigenous dance festival, and many of the local peoples there were also utilizing marine fishing debris to make a wonderful mural as a backdrop to one of their stands.
Ghost nets are huge floating nets which have been abandoned by the original users; these nets become entangled with each other, and carry on their task of "fishing" with horrendous results on marine fauna.

On a final note closer to home, I tried to reduce the fussiness of my latest painting..not a great photo with flash bouncing off the wet paint.