Ned Kelly

I've loved the Ned Kelly story since I was a young boy growing up around Albury which is on the Murray River and. The kids in our street and my brothers even built a cubbie house out the back we called The Horseshoe Hangout", where would wrote a song, told stories and lived like Huckleberry Finn.
His bulletproof armour and shoot out was the stand out part of his short but famous life.
Is Ned Kelly a hero or a villain?
Ned Kelly was born in December 1855 and hung on the 11 th of November 1880.
A murderer or was he and his family persecuted by individuals within the undisciplined Victorian Police and his stand was about defending his family from the persecution?
I grew up close to Ned Kelly country and as a teenager, I've hiked and camped on some of the hills he roamed. The hills around Albury had many a bushranger "hangout", including caves and lookouts I have explored. One of my favourite was a lookout and cave used by bushranger Dan Morgan at Table Top.
Despite numerous movies about Ned Kelly, his family and his "gang", the Australian community is still divided as to how they categorise our most famous identity. This sketch was my first artwork in what is to become a series of paintings I'm doing which will tell the story of how I see Ned Kelly.
Which side are you on?

Follow

Inspired by the Australian landscape, Andrew has a love for life, our beaches, forests, outback plains and wildlife.
He loves old architecture, urban design and Australian landmarks, which are emerging as a key focus of his paintings.
His work reveals a strong sense of humour, personal reflection and love of everything linked to Australia, it's history, its peoples and culture.
Born in Albury, New South Wales, Andrew spent many weekends boating and camping on the banks of local rivers, hiking through the lower Snowy Mountains, sleeping in old shearing sheds near Tallangatta, fishing with his father on the Hume Dam, inland western rivers of NSW and family holidays to Victoria's Mornington Peninsula and Bermagui on the South Coast of New South Wales.
Educated in the public school system, Andrew learnt to appreciate life as a boy from the bush who became an artist. He started sketching in the late 60's and attended art school at Albury's Technical College. Learning along the way with a variety of experiences enriched through amateur stage shows, the military, a career in new home design and sales and twenty years in public office.
Andrew has his studio and teaches adults to sketch, paint and explore their inner creative, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
Enjoy his unique and quirky individual style including the emu series, outback landscapes and Australian icons with a notably different style, perspective and use of colour.