Ascender

Sometimes a painting takes a lot of effort, changes of mind and revision, before it reaches anything near to completion.
This painting is not one of those. From the beginning, everything went well. I remember being in a state of flow.
Every mark, every gesture felt right, with no doubt. Every choice of colour and tone needed no second decision.
It was painted after a trip to Queensland, in the tropical far north of Australia. I was trying to express the feeling of being immersed in the pristine ocean waters of that wild, untouched envoirnment.
As the eye of the viewer moves toward the bottom of the painting, the colour and tone gradually deepen, suggesting a sensation of decending into a tropical ultramarine / turquoise ocean. In the stillness of the depths, vivid flashes of yellow, orange and vermillion streak past, maybe a life-form reflecting colour against the darkness…The paint is applied very quickly here, adding to the speed of their passing. From the center of the painting, there is an amorphous shape emerging toward the sunlight above. It has a gleaming upward thrust, like an ascension from the depths of the ocean to the warm air above. This white ‘presence’ is flanked on both sides by organic shapes…some kind of mangrove vegitation,
dangling on the surface of the water.
The scale of this piece (170 cms or 5.5 feet) contributes to the convincing feeling of immersion in a tropical ocean.
It is stretched on the finest cotton duck tripple primed canvas imported from Belgium,
I use oil paint made by Old Holland, and Matisse Acrylic Paint (which is the best on the market).

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EXHIBITIONS IN AUSTRALIA

1994 Provenance Fine Art, Paddington, Sydney.
1995

North Shore Fine Art Sydney.
1994 Provenance Fine Art, Paddingto
Holdsworth Gallery, Sydney.
Qantas Club Sydney.
1998 Greenhills Gallery, Perth, Western Australia.
Norton Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
1999 Norton Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
2000 Despard Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania.
The Norton Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
Masterworks. Melbourne, Australia
2003 Hart Gallery, Queensland, Australia.
Masterworks. Melbourne, Australia.
Phillips Fine Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2006 Hart Gallery, Queensland, Australia.
Phillips Fine Art Gallery, Sydney.
2008 The Wentworth Gallery, Sydney.
2010 Gallery 2120, Brisbane, Australia.
2012 Greenhills Gallery, Adelaide Australia.
2013 Traffic Jam Galleries, Sydney, Australia.
2015 The Center for Creative Non-Conformity
Crows Nest, Sydney, Australia.
2017 Gallery 2120, Brisbane, Australia.
2020 Wentworth Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
2022 Audrey Fine Art, Sydney, Australia.
2023 Wentworth Gallery, Sydney, Australia

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

1983 Exhibition of Visual Art Limerick. Ireland.
1984 ‘Young Contemporaries’. Dublin. Ireland.
1986 Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya.
1987 ‘Land of Tooth and Claw’,
Davis Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
1989 Sterling Gallery, La Jolla, California
Annex Gallery,SanDiego,CA.
Huygen-Jaeger Gallery, London, England.
Gustav Mantel Gallerie, Frankfurt, Germany.
1990 Zola Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
The Fidelity Collection, Los Angeles CA.
Barbara Devorzon, Los Angeles, California.
1991 Tiempo Art Space, San Francisco, CA.
Croce’s Gallery, San Diego, CA.
Sterling Gallery, La Jolla, CA
1992 Barbara Devorzon, Los Angeles, Ca.
Zola Gallery, Los Angeles CA.
Sterling Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1994 Pantheon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ireland.
2005 The Blue Dot Gallery, Toronto, Canada.
2010 Project Art Space, Temple Bar, Dublin.