Time on Koondooloo

Time on Koondooloo is an artwork of texture, shape, and colour. It features two large air vents from the ship Koondooloo. The large cogs remind me of an old watch while the metal rust barnacles look like seashells washed upon the beach.

The Koondooloo started life in Leith, Scotland in 1924. She steamed around the world to Sydney in the same year and was placed into service as a punt from North Sydney to the city. The ferry was then joined by two sister ships the Kalang and Kara-Kara. Their time was up in 1932 when the Sydney Harbour bridge was opened. Retrenched from service the Koondooloo was then converted to Sydney’s first single decked show boat in 1937. Imagine love had bloomed on the Koondooloo. Sydney couples danced their way to romance on the decks of this versatile Scottish ship.

In 1985, at Trial Bay NSW, I had spent a night to remember camping in the remains of the ferry. I awoke to a bright blue sky, red funnel, and wanning moon from my dew covered sleeping bag. While translating the photo into this artwork I noticed Koondooloo was trying to tell me her story.

In the right-hand corner, the morning light has cast a shape, half a heart on the rusted roof. Fittingly the other half of the heart gives way to a bright moon and the colour red in the air vent. The show boat era was successful for Koondooloo and she was soon joined by her sister ship the Kalang on Sydney Harbour.

All this changed again in 1942 when she was commissioned for Army use in WW2. After the war ended she was converted back to a car ferry and used in the Newcastle to Stockton crossing. In 1972 the ferries were being towed to Manilla to be scrapped. They had been sheltered in Trial Bay to avoid a storm off the coast in January. Three ferries ended up grounded in the shallow bay, and the Koondooloo was washed onto the beach as her final resting place.

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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.