Oasis In The City

In my exhibition scheduled for June 2020 at Tacit Galleries in Collingwood, I will be exploring the recuperative and consoling powers nature has to offer to all of us. The exhibition will be based around Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens which I have visited many times for psychological recovery from the challenges of modern existence, such as losing one’s job, difficulties in relationships or even working one’s way through art school. It’s the responsibility of art to make us appreciate the importance of modest moments in our lives, such as the play of shadows cast by a tree on a path.

Hill Of Contentment Oil On Canvas 102 cm x 102 cm

Modern advertising often specialises in glamourizing the unattainable; that is, places that are rare, remote, costly or famous.  Yet here we have an exotic location right under our noses that we can visit at any time.  And the sun need not be shining to appreciate the mysteries of these gardens.   A visit on a quiet and drizzly day can be an oddly therapeutic experience as you get the feeling that you have the whole gardens to yourself – tearooms and all.  Without the perpetual buzz of sight-seeing aircraft overhead, one can absorb the almost surreal beauty of the gardens, the thought that has gone into the landscaping and the far flung vistas.

Grey Day In The Gardens Oil On Canvas 71 cm x 107 cm

Thanks to the barrage of advertising that constantly assails us, we lose the value of things that are close to hand, such as a quiet secluded area that allows time for contemplation. We become ungrateful for things that are free or don’t cost very much and we lose the value of ideas and feelings.

Casting A Long Shadow Oil On Canvas 102 cm x 76 cm

In this series I have not bothered with depicting precise species of plants as this is not meant to be an exact botanical record.  It’s a mood, a feeling that I’m intending to convey.

Time Passages

A plot of crown land with a trig station on top, near the centre of Melbourne, is the setting for a new series of paintings that I will exhibit at Tacit Contemporary Art in August.  The beauty of this location is that it is rarely visited, so it's quiet yet contains 360 degree views of this huge city.

There's incongruity in this location with She-oaks which are normally associated with semi-arid regions thriving only a few kilometers from the Melbourne CBD.

Also visible from this location is the former Willsmere Psychiatric Hospital, now "fashionable" inner city apartments.  The grand facade still looms over the city and is a poignant counter point to the insane apartment development going on in the inner city.

I hope this location, just above the Yarra Boulevard in Kew, never gets developed.  In a world obsessed with productivity, it can be refreshing to stand on this lonely hilltop where status and possessions mean nothing, and where I can contemplate the ambivalent relationship I have with this town - and perhaps with life in general.