I started painting in 2010. I had just retired and a friend asked me what was in my bucket list. It was empty except for a significant improvement in my golf game. In Trump terms it was a fake.
Ever the optimist I suggested learning a musical instrument was an option. He indicated that I probably didn’t have the grey matter. Evidently he when suffering from a bad back had token up painting and really enjoyed it. My friend had in previous times given me wise counsel and a button was pushed inside my physic.
On the way home I stopped at a Reject shop and bought a canvas, brushes and a set of acrylic paints. It was $30 investment that, in all seriousness, changed my life. My first work was a copy of the lines and squares of Mondrian. Something happened that I still can’t explain. It was like I had found the Holy Grail. It was a very ordinary effort but I loved the process.
It may sound a bit ‘wanky’ but I started to look at the world through a different lens. Colors and shapes and perspective caught my attention. I goggled with an obsession and borrowed art books and subscribed to art magazines. I expect it was a bit similar to the obsession I had with my employment. Retirement had opened a new door.
Early days I painted golf courses. On my many golf trips away with the boys my works were awarded to the person who came last. Golfers will know it as the NAGA. One bloke who won one took it home and hung it in his chook shed and the eggs flowed freely. It was the first example of my work being liked even if by the feathered.
Colour attracted me the most. At high school, for a short time, I had an old bloke teaching us and he was Henry Lawson’s biggest fan. He exposed me to Lawson’s writing and in particular the hardship of the early settlers. The starkness of their existence for some reason lodged in my brain. In particular The Drover’s Wife and Water the Geraniums struck a nerve.
Growing up I had two aunties, my mum’s sisters, who both had beautiful gardens. One lived in a country town. The other auntie lived in a country town. Each had English gardens full of foliage and blossoms and colour. The gardens struck a nerve.
The third influence on my work is tulips. The vibrancy of Tulip fields struck a nerve.
The paintings I call English Gardens meets Aussie Bush is I guess my mixing the three together in a type of minestrone. The starkness of the bush, the blossoms of the gardens and the vibrancy of colours is my interpretation of early settlement after the invasion.
Truth is I am not a cultured bloke. Painting gives me a thrill that is a new and now treasured emotion. I reckon everybody should pay a visit to the Reject shop.