I am Paul and I paint and write, draw and play and sing.
People even pay me. Mostly for the painting and drawing part
My work is about passion.
Never believe that you do not know what it is that you see when you look at artwork.
Emerson said “Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string.” If it moves you. If you can feel it, if you see yourself in its shadows or a memory or a hope, a colour, a place a feeling – if you empathize… if it makes your breath catch in your throat. That's the only thing that really matters.
That – THAT exquisite moment is such a gift to me. It is the greatest hope that I carry with me in my hopeful little heart of hopefulness.
It is a great honour to be in any way a part of such feelings with my work.
PAUL'S ART CAREER:
I've won a lot of awards, but due to memory loss I'm not sure how many. Somewhere between twelve and nineteen. One of them was international - or at least Australia - NZ. I won them mostly before the net published everything, I'm afraid. These were in the real not-on-line world, including the WA Premier's Award from Geoff Gallup in 2003. He also opened my biggest exhibitions (I've had ten) in 2004, when he was Premier of West Australia. I've had 15 years off from neuropahthic pain, so the bulk of my career happened a while ago. In the last few years I have slowly been able to do more and more. I'm producing a great deal of work these days, but I am still nervous of committing to exhibitions while the chronic pain is so unpredictable.
I have a BA in fine arts. I've sold hundreds of paintings, including to the UK and a few to the USA. I was invited to exhibit at the Soho Gallery in New York, but I was too ill to take up residency there, and was forced to refuse. Ah well.
I have won three minor writing awards for short stories: The Armadale Writing Award in 2018. And the Atlantis Anthology Writing award in 2017-18.
Two of my stories were seleceted for publication in that issue. I did the cover art for free.