Darwin’s Tree Wentworth Falls Ideals are dangerous things Realities are better They wound but they are better

As with the other oil paintings that comprise my body of works, under the series title: Brasfort/Heroes, this three panel painting has as one of it’s central theme or indeed the main element in each artwork, a Blue Mountains historical landmark that falls upon the original colonial exploration trail, together with scavenged images of nudes or film actors from the internet, and occasionally members of the artists family (scavenged from family outings).
This painting depicts in the left hand panel (the panels form scenes like a short film), the current Alexander Hotel in Leura, as seen from Leura Train Station. I wanted to convey to the viewer what a wonderful building the now burned down Weatherboard Hotel must have looked like in 1836, and to symbolise Australias reliance on fossil fuels from the industrial age to the end of the 20th Century. My thumbprint acts like a dark sun, as the hotel seems to move forward like a locomotive engine.
The middle panel shows in its background, an evergreen oak, planted in 1936, exactly one century after Darwin visited the Weatherboard Hotel (in situ), at Wentworth Falls, a walk nearby is also named in his honour. I wanted to replicate René Magritte’s trees or vegetation that he paints like screens, in many of his artworks. This explains the treatment of half the oak. The scavenged image of a pregnant woman, leaning against a mossy rock (the same model in the last panel), in addition signifies Darwin’s species tree, she seems show a look of ironic humour on her face. An image of my brother in law standing behind my families property near Mittagong as yellow bushfire smoke fills the atmosphere and woven gum branches, is inserted as a painting within a painting. The woman is either applying or taking off a mask, that is a self portrait (stolen from Snapchat) of the artist as a woman. What does this mean in terms of the Corona Virus?
In the right hand panel, the same pregnant woman is a giantess and places her hands upon Leura’s railway station platform. Should we not, as a sensible nation, take heed of these disasters and meld our will to the iron horse? Or the power of the untrammelled elements?

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**News Flash**

Patrick's recent solo art exhibition was held:
Where: Space 3, M16 Artspace,
21 Blaxland Crescent
Griffith ACT 2603
When: Exhibition Opening 6pm-8pm,
Thursday 19 March 2026
Opening Hours
Office: Wednesday - Friday, 12pm-5pm
Gallery: Wednesday - Sunday, 12pm-5pm
☎ Contact Us
(02) 6295 9438
office@m16artspace.com
Exhibition closes: Sunday 12 April
Webpage: https://www.m16artspace.com.au/2026-exhibitions/slpghj42tr7pjbxzx2dl4324kx8a9m-46rce

Also:

Currently two of Patrick's oil paintings have been selected for inclusion in OnArt Magazine, an online magazine, based in Italy:
2026: pages 118 - 119.
OnArt Magazine, Vol. One, Online art magazine, Pages: 118-119, Italian magazine: https://issuu.com/onartmag/docs/onart_vol._one/118?ff

**End News Flash**

If you're interested in a gift portrait of a friend, family member, dog or horse, for BLACK FRIDAY, please PM me or text me on 0415HROMAS. My rates for all beloved individuals are, (drawn or painted on A3 sized paper or canvas): $160 for black & white conté/pastel drawing, $220 for a coloured pastel drawing, $260 for a coloured oil painting, all from .jpegs, POSTAGE IS FREE in the cost for all artworks that are sized A3 (or smaller) and can be rolled up, to *all Australian Metropolitan Areas*, international postage extra. Don't delay! Thank you,
Patrick

Patrick Hromas, BA (Visual) 1996

I am a visual artist who was born in Sydney in 1973, and grew up in Hunters Hill. I have been making bespoke art ever since I remember, drawing the Hunters Hill Post Office when I was 13, “built in 1891 as designed by the government architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, in Queen Anne Style”. I graduated from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, in 1996. I enjoyed an enriching experience as a student exchange recipient with Ecole Nationalé Superieur des Beaux Artes for five months in 1995/6. I suffered from a mental health problem after being hospitalised in Nîmes in the South of France. Now that I have largely overcome that health issue, I draw in pastels or conté, paint in oil colours and occasionally watercolours.

I have shown my artworks in seven solo shows and 52 group exhibitions, as far west & north as London, United Kingdom, as far east as Bronte and far south as Acton the Australian Capital Territory. As a member of the Blue Mountains Community Arts Network, I was invited to exhibit my painting: “Macquarie Road (Why should you be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over some shameful passion.)” in the group exhibition: Infinities of Blue, in the Fountain Court at Parliament House of New South Wales. Most notably, one of my hand printed, hand typeset artists books is in the collection of the Australian National University Library, Acton, ACT.

I adore to draw sitters’ portraits in pastel or conté generally from .jpegs, adding a background image from their favourite holiday happy snaps. Conté is a hard, waxy stick like crayon and is virtually indelible once applied to fine art paper. To enquire, please send me a message, via text to: +61 2 415HROMAS, the message service here or leave a voice message on my home number, +61 2 4751 8279.

I only use archival quality materials throughout my practice. I am also a registered NSW eco-aware artist.

I construct, using Photoshop, mock-ups for the my collages or oil paintings by scavenging imagery as a Postmodern surrealist, from a variety of sources. I then go about weaving the figures in the .jpeg image and further teasing out forms, colours and compositions, painting the final work from my iMac screen. Only when the balance between these elements and an even an absence or obscurification of image is reached so to let the eye rest, as instinct or aesthetics demand, is the painting complete.

“Patrick is an artist who truly loves what he does. He immerses himself in the world around him and ways to capture its joy, its pleasures and those moments that compose the passages of time. He also maintains a sense of the paint itself. The choice of media and colour are always so key in representing the artist’s world, but these choices and techniques also convey emotion and feeling, and that is what Patrick does with heart and depth. The colour blue is predominant in Patrick’s work, perhaps because he resides in the Blue Mountains and that dusky landscape inspires him. In art historical terms, the cobalt, ultramarine and light purple were also colours used by the Renaissance painters and they add a sense of light and calm to Patrick’s work.”
Anna Groden,
ANG Art Consulting.
(Email:
angartconsulting@gmail.com)

I hope to exhibit my work in a National art Prize, and hold further solo exhibitions in the Blue Mountains and Sydney. I have a number of drawings and paintings in the collection of individuals residing in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the ACT, India and Japan.

All my paintings and drawings on stretcher bars that are not framed behind glass have 2 d-rings attached for larger artworks or 2 triangular rings attached securely, 12cm from the top of the artwork. My framed artworks larger than A2 size, have d-rings *and* a nylon chord or plastic coated wire for hanging. My artworks framed behind glass smaller than A2 have a nylon chord for hanging.

On Thursday, 11 November 2021, between 2PM and 3PM AEST (NSW) TIME, Patrick was interviewed by Toni Lontis on Radio Toni:
https://youtu.be/_7mR1OkrHx4

If you’ve tried calling me on my mobile, please feel free to call my home number 02 4751 8279 where you can also leave a message. I usually return home at 3:00pm.