Baby King Christmas Feast

Baby King Christmas Feast is an artwork I created to celebrate the union between colour, season, and youth. This juvenile baby King parrot feeding on the nectar of a Christmas Bush in December was a moment caught by my camera in the front garden.

The rich colours of the King parrot nestled in the flowers are a great reminder that the Christmas season is approaching – let the feasting begin!

In this painting I have paid special attention to blending the complex foliage of the leaves and flowers against the vivid green and red underbelly of the bird. The result is a colour palette of green and pink with splashes of deep blue and orange red.

The Christmas Bush, Ceratopetalum gummiferum, is found on the eastern coastal fringe of New South Wales. The small tree flowers in early November, with small white flowers, these change colour gradually to bright red and pink as Christmas day approaches.

Baby King Christmas Feast comes with a 43 second video revealing the story of its making.

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I have taken the long road to discover that painting and photography can sit side by side, for me painting is my first meaningful creative outlet. I use my photography to inspire my artwork and I hope my love of composition, subject and light come through in my artwork.

I was born in Papua New Guinea and lived on a remote rubber plantation before moving to Sydney in 1971 at the age of 7. I was finding it hard adjusting to the city and my mother encouraged me to take up oil painting.

Having won an art competition when I was 10, the judges recommended that I study at the local TAFE on a Saturday morning. I completed one term but felt out of place with students who were all over 16 years old, so I did not continue. (I was also a TV junkie, we had no TV in Papua, and staying at TAFE meant missing out on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.)

It took me 40 years to rediscover painting.

The one constant in my work is to find a new project and during my break from painting I have been a project manager in Information Technology. This kept me in a world with projects, and here too I learnt that even the smallest piece of data contributes its meaning towards each information system. The other constant motivating me in life is to finish a project so I can start a new one.

My creative drive comes from knowing that each brush stroke I make contributes its meaning towards the completed work. What inspires me about art is how the smallest brush strokes, when added together, can radiate a meaning for the person who gazes at the painting far beyond the meaning of each brush stroke.

I aim to do my best in each project and try to avoid, at all cost, the haunting feeling I get when I leave a project unresolved. Even to this day I still think of my unfinished painting of a sailing boat peeping out behind photographic developing chemicals back in 1979. I was 15 then and my easel had been replaced by a camera and darkroom. A part of me still needed to finish the oil painting, but photography filled the void, so the unfinished artwork was thrown away in a frenzied darkroom clean out before my HSC exams.