Quiet Dawn

pauldrobertson and Obi-wan the cat, Perth, Australia – pauldrobertson.com
I refuse to draw over the paw prints that Oi-wan, my cat, elegantly added.
She would never let it go if I did. She would take it outta my hide.
I drew this piece of my lovely fiance, Sinn, while she was gracious enough to stand in front of me looking gracious. Graciously. She too serves my cat.* Also graciously.
*Megalomania is a real problem and should be taken seriously, especially when it affects your cat and she tries to invade Europe.
Here is a recent text i sent her that was deformed horrifically by technology into something like it was by William S Burroughs. Go on! Get into a fight with me about it if you want! I’ll hassle your pants and question your personal hygiene!
So she has yet to read it. I am kind of terrified that she will.
I am awed and stunned by wonder and wonder again… I cannot find my breath my words are drowned in the thunder of my body’s thunderous, bloody rush. And to -
to have my arms (so wreathed and flush and boiling with desire so weak with want) hold your body hear your heart share your warmth
as you sleep; the arc of your cheek is the most beauty I have trembled before.., the sweetened exhalation of your breath
skin so real so
warm
and
oh
so soft;
it beggars fine-spun cloud-silk , the touch of any babe be they gentle yet; the lightest lacrimony of warming rain; any and all for ever and only there could be no more than your touch but
no, not the quiescence of flesh
not and never no – there is more not her skin no not
never – there is further grace held hushed beside me. raging fury of will and heat –
the gentleness of her heart, so close to mine as to frighten me.
For her it is conflagration such fierce pride and agony of ardour a desire such DESIRE (a never-seen incandescence to match my own)
Cached in a sudden stillness… a feather caress and she is become an angel of tenderness? How…? is she able to be..?
A warrior born. Her lips Sweetened honey, her mind steel milked from the most sinuous and sensuous of venoms.
Schooled. Mistress to the most lethal of lives…
Wrapped in the flesh of a wildling hart?
We know and wear loss as all do in any life. The extant tragedy of what she has lived is beyond the comprehension of a man as proud of his own survival as familiar with the madness of unending pain as I.
She beauty born from this, some form and weight of gravitas.
Her history is barely visible but tears always fascinating exhilarating that she is what and whom, what she is and still, still
In each step so tired worn and fought and such pain so worn a clutch a fist of years scores and even yet now wearing to bone to mind to scourged worn and won fought again it hurt her I know it must she remembers… she is a soul a life flaring with war death-dealers with atrocity with war war war WAR!
Her body more scar than skin (so soft so alive so soft and mine)
How can it be? Grace hums against her limbs warmed by their touch she is yet delicate… (so soft! her skin her skin! Her scars! Her skin!!)
movements svelte and boiling with latency; it is forever abeyant, utterly implicit in her, in all that she is. Coiled in her is a fell warrior. Such strength, feline yet shivered and silvered with
Fragility
(how? What is she to be this?)
I wish and wish for her hope so it hurts me with my wishes
I wish I
Wish;
I… if she could use this inferno, the frenzied oceans, the tempest worlds of will so thick in her chest
to believe
this…
if she would if she will.
I beg for her credulity I offer my hands my works my eyes believe me believe believe!
before she flooded my heart and writ hope across sorrow; before she breathed rapture and tore hope open like this like THIS I did not know I had never begun to see…
She is without equal. Without precedent. She is craving, She is lust, she is
honour.
I need her to know. She must know.
She is my life’s love
Only. And forever.
Her.
She (my fiance, Sinn, NOT MY CAT OBIWAN) is the most noble person I have ever met.
I’ve been very, very busy recently. I did this piece AND did my washing. In one day.
Now the washing I did in not dissimilar enthusiasms molders, demanding to be taken out and hung. The valance peers mournfully out of the laundry at me.
Did I tell everyone that I have a valance?
I do.
It’s green. Though not from moldering.
I do like having a valance, though I emphatically believe that men should NOT really know what one is; spending that thirty dollars and finally covering the unsightly bit of bed at the bottom was a great moment for me. I told all my friends. Many times. Took them into my room and showed them.
“Here it is,” I said. “My valance.”
“Oh.” They said.
I would like to expand my range of haberdashery, but just not quite yet. The valance is enough for me.
For now.
Paul

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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 was invited to exhibit at the Soho Gallery In Soho Village New York, but my health did not allow me to take advantage of that opportunity. I have a certificate of art and design and a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, majoring in painting, for which I maintained a distinction average.
In 2000 I exhibited at the Como Library, which led to an exhibit at the Como Gallery. I also sold work during that year through a variety of commercial galleries including the Schubert Gallery on the Gold Coast.
I had my next solo exhibition at Gallery 274 in Northbridge in 2001, followed immediately by another solo exhibition at the Babylon Hotel. That year Cannington had three consecutive on-site art competitions coinciding with markets, painting timed in situ. I won all three awards, including one sponsored by the then premier, Geoff Gallup. I won the Katanning art award and the Wongan Hills Art Award.
In 2003 I had a highly publicised solo exhibition at the Hawthorn Gallery, which the Premier of Western Australia opened. The Premier and I had planned a portrait sitting, but he retired due to personal reasons and I missed that opportunity. . I won the Mosman Park Art Award that year.
In 2004 I held another solo exhibition at the Australian Institute of Management, and that Institution also purchased a four meter tetraptych which still hangs in their foyer.
In 2005, I held a solo exhibition at Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle and another at the Mosman Park Town Hall.
In 2006, I held an exhibition at a central Florist in Floreat and was fortunate enough to have a sellout show.
In 2007 I exhibited at the Matisse Restaurant at City Beach.
I won the international art award - the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) that same year.
In 2008 I held a solo show at the Moores Building in Fremantle.
I became ill with CNS pain and spent 8 years bedbound, during which time I wrote a 5000 page novel “All That We Have Given” – one chapter of which subsequently won a place in the Atlantis international writing Award, along with another short story.
I was invited to exhibit at the Soho Gallery In Soho Village New York, but my health did not allow me to take advantage of that opportunity.
I won the Armadale Writing Award in 2018. I wrote a another novel for LGBTQ+ tweens but have not pursued publishing due to my health.
My health has slowly been improving in the last eight years, but I am not interested in exhibiting presently.
I have sold work to to collectors in many states of Australia, the United States, Europe, Asia (including Japan), and I exhibited on the South Bank in London in 2023 despite being too ill to attend the exhibition.
I am severely disabled. I was born with a left temporal lobe sub-arachnoid cyst and have no function in more than one fifth of my brain. This has resulted childhood epilepsy, prosopagnosia (face blindness) rather extreme ADHD, mild dyspraxia, the above mentioned CNS pain and bipolar one disorder. The bipolar required annual hospitalisations until 2014, and I have undergone ECT (shock treatment) over many years. It has impacted my memory. I don’t have any recollection of winning more awards, but my family assures me that I have won more. Unfortunately most would have been awarded before such things were published online. I am unsure of the total and lost the physical plaques for the awards during the haze of my illness, which has lasted for eighteen years. However, I am functional a few days a week and often attend life drawing – I have sold dozens of fast life drawings to the models themselves, which is, I gather, quite unusual. My bipolar is now far more manageable and I no longer requite ECT.
Presently I am engaged in illustrating a graphic novel that I have written.
It concerns the darkest of subjects, but because I’m an Aussie, the dialogue is hilarious because THAT’S HOW WE DEAL WITH ADVERSITY. It’s a tradition I’m proud to carry on.
I am half way through the illustration of the graphic novel. I am painting or drawing each panel to the best of my ability and it is some of my most powerful work.
My ambition is to create one of the most beautiful books in the world.
Sometimes I paint in public, and every now and then people will cry when they see my work.
I hold that to be the greatest honour an artist can receive.