1880-2012…now that is a lot of gravel

Mining has taken place since 1880…Australia needed roads developed.

Can’t help but wonder what the landscape would have looked like without the mining.

Russell Drysdale’s ‘Sweet Polly Mine’ came to mind while working at the gravel pit beside Bass Point, south coast NSW Australia.

Cezanne would have loved it!

Bass Point structures…conveyor belts like praying mantises.

Sketching as a fox scampers past

The scale of structures at Bass Point was large..textures, movement, machinations.

Final Bass Point

Another perfect day at Bass Point…where gravel pit meets the sea.

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia

The family visited the 2012 Archibald Prize (portrait painting), Wynne (Landscape painting or figurative sculpture) and Sulman (Subject, genre or mural painting) Prizes.

www.artgallery.nsw.prizes.

Of course the long queues are the initial deterrents, but people watching is always a great diversion in a busy gallery. Being objective is often hard when each year artists try to reinvent (or appropriate) methods of presenting a portrait that are original or substantial and thought provoking. Subject matter is centred around prominent characters in the Arts in Australia, and consequently the viewers relate automatically to the sitters. Technically, some works are traditional, and others push the limits of the materials and what they are capable of. Conceptually, responses are broad, as befits the variety of characters.

I thought the portraiture was mediocre, and headed for the Wynne prize which has landscape paintings or figurative sculpture. Often works that impressed were created by artists who return repeatedly to a site and continually explore its possibilities- Robert Malherbe ‘Blackheath Landscape’, and Philip Wolfhagen ‘Third Exaltation’.

A great Mother’s Day experience with the family, all of whom had varying responses to the exhibition that led to chatters, ideas and gestures that connect us so strongly.

Return to Bass Point-stage one

Bass Point was stunning today. No foxes, but a helicopter, police and a craft practising rescue operations. A man was lowered into the vessel amid the spray and bluster caused by the hovering helicopter. Nearby, a large coal loading conveyer sat dormant, as it projected into the sea.

Abstraction is such bliss.

Back to the studio, to develop the image further.

Bass Point…home of sharks and fox and a spearfisherman!!

Australia is an amazing place…Bass Point on the south coast of New South Wales was the venue for recent painting. As the morning coffee and munchies were being unpacked prior to the serious painting part of the day, a fox appeared from the bushes. A protected wildlife zone! It watched. It waited. It peered confidently at us. It had no fear. A willy wag tail started to zoom over it. Still no concerns. When it had decided that there would be no morsels from the artists, it quietly slinked into the undergrowth.

I explored the site, and found a shipwreck, and a marine zone where Grey Nurse Sharks have a Critical and Protected Habitat. Emerging from the water was a spear fisherman, who quietly slinked into the undergrowth. He, too should not have been there.

This painting was a response to the experience.