Brett grew up in a family of artists in New Zealand, UK, Norway and Australia. He graduated from QCA in 1986 with a major in painting and has worked both within the fine arts and also as a commercial painter and sculptor, starting out at world expo 88 and going on to notably create works for Opera Australia and has also painted theatrical back drops for the Sydney Opera house.
He has participated in numerous group shows and has held 6 solo exhibitions, both as a sculptor and a painter. He has won two 2nd place sculpture prizes and has submitted work into the Archibald portrait prize 3 times, the last entry being a triple portrait of Anthony Albanese.
This current series of Paintings, displayed here is entitled;
THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF CLOUDS
…for many years I’ve been toying with the idea of painting clouds…I mean like painting portraits of clouds…as if they were people….I see clouds all the time… there is something very likeable…and reassuring about clouds…. …and I am very aware I find some clouds far more attractive than others… some are strong and definite and seem very sure of themselves…some are wispy and lacey and delicate…they come in all shapes and sizes…kind of like us…and I’ve kind of come to see myself as a connoisseur of clouds, of sorts…some clouds are the manifestations of the unformed, unconscious thoughts that drift through our minds…
…some clouds evoke moods… like a sunny day sky dotted with a few soft, but strong white clouds conjures up a happy sun- shiny mood for me…
…I have a feeling of connectedness to the the idea that like us, clouds also need air and water to survive …like us, they are also mostly water….I find it reassuring that we are similar, as I’m not much interested in the science of meteorology…I find it all rather dry and dull and…ummm…scientific…and predictably boring…instead I am much more interested in poetry and in ideas …ideas like, that clouds may be a repository of our consciousness… and without us feeding them with our consciousness, clouds could actually cease to exist…imagine a world with no clouds…how would that make you feel? …kind of like a desert in the sky?…like an absence of emotion?
…things I have learnt about clouds; clouds like us, equally as much as we like clouds…clouds imitate weather forecasts… clouds imitate many things…if you have ever seen a cloud that looked like something else, like an animal or a face…it’s not a co-incidence…clouds cast shadows …clouds ride upon our combined breath…we create them by breathing and thinking …clouds like being with clouds ( much like cars like being with cars…it’s kind of counter intuitive ) … there are many conspiracy theories about clouds, but none of them are true…https://www.facebook.com/visualartistbrettwilliams