Star Gazing with Vincent.

This is one of several older artworks that I’ve put up onto Bluethumb recently. It’s a very good opportunity to buy early artwork that displays the starting points of the ideas, colours and style that are developing and emerge later in my artistic career.

This work was based around my earlier hobby of stargazing. The combination of enjoying both the heavens and Van Gough combined into this great piece that one art director called, “cheeky”. This is one of my favourite pieces and it was good to get in their with old Vinny. I had a lot of fun checking out his painting “in depth”, so I could copy it, and I hope he can see that I admire his work. Mind you, he was a cranky fellow. He painted his work, “Starry Night”, whilst looking through the barred window of his room at the Saint-Paul de Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 15 miles from Arles.

Vincent had read about comets in a magazine and the painting accurately depicts the position of Venus and Aries at the time of painting: 4 am, June 1889. I repainted it nearly 100 years later and I like that connection.

This painting, arrives stretched, ready to hang on a quality frame, and is finished with a double varnish coat. It is packaged securely in a shipping crate and is well safeguarded with protective layering. My work comes with a certificate of authenticity and often contains notes on the artwork’s providence.

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Born in Hampshire, England, Colin arrived in Australia in 1971 and found work making chandeliers and later delivering rental televisions. Studying for matriculation over two years at night school he enrolled in Art College at the Preston Institute of Technology in 1975. A number of leading artists taught at PIT and Colin had the opportunity to work in audio with David Tolley, conceptualism with Dom De Clario, with the hard edge painting of Dale Hickey and the large, expressionistic work of Peter Booth, all of who have subtly influenced his own art. Majoring in Sound and Painting Colin left to drive taxis and to teach Art. Failing to heed the advice of a gallery director who told him to consider concentrating on one genre and sticking to it Colin continues to produce figurative paintings and drawings; large, ambient, colourwork and the occasional sculpture, installation and audio work.
About my artwork.
My work is generated from things around me that fit a certain feeling. At times I go looking and find them in places, or in objects and people. Other times I find them in a less active fashion, in sounds or perhaps in dreams or blends of colours. I find making artwork irresistible and enjoy the actual cognition of looking, listening and producing the work. Art is a rich tool, a mechanism that I can use to explore and respond to this curious and strange world where things appear both solidly real and also evasive and elusive.