Wimbie St

The painting is not of our beach house. The painting is looking up Wimbie Street, from Wimbie Beach, three streets away from our not on the beach house. We could afford three streets away from the beach as, at the time, the price of houses went down approximately $100K for every street you were back from the beach. Probably, the differential between beach frontage and stinky creek frontage (where we are) is even greater now. If you factor in climate change and rising sea levels, the cost of beach frontage should be dropping as beach frontage becomes less desirable. Our little house on Bayview Avenue, which does not have a Bayview at all, might now be worth more or because of climate change might, one day, have beach frontage or at least, better water views than stinky creek.

It’s a very ordinary, unpretentious little house. And definitely not as cool as the 60’s beach shack has become. Think cheaply build, early 80’s prefab. Wimbie Beach, like the house (and us) is a bit grotty and underwhelming and is therefore a dog friendly beach, which suits us fine. We do not get down there as often as we would like or should, so we share the house with a group of friends and acquaintances who also don’t mind that it’s a bit down market either. Kids, dogs and grown-ups don’t have to behave too perfectly in a not quite on the beach house.

Wimbie Street is very typical of the South Coast and that is why I wanted to paint it. Topography and trees, houses, streets, driveways and nature strips. I’ve always loved the way that the trees get tall and straighter as you head down the Clyde to the coast from Canberra and the look and feel of that soft, spongy, zesty green coastal cooch on my bare feet as I walk up the hill from the beach carrying way too much stuff. It reminds me of summer, even when it’s winter. Stuff just grows down the coast with all that sunlight and moisture, unlike Canberra with its scrubby, stunted trees, bindies and burnt off brown stubble. When it rains at the coast, as it does often, the sky gets all washed out and pale, which is neither as attractive as a bright blue, or as beautifully dramatic as a stormy one, but I like the way it makes everything more contrasty.

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I am an artist who has run an e-bike business from home for the past 15 years while raising three children and loves most things about living in the “People’s Republic of O’connor” (Inner North, Canberra). I graduated with an MBA (Strategic Operations Management) from Charles Stuart University a long time ago and a BA in Visual Arts (Painting) from the Australian National University a very, very, long, long time ago.
There are a couple of underlying, reoccurring and interrelated themes that inform my art practice and bubble to the surface of my paintings (both implicitly or explicitly) from time to time.
The first of these themes is the idea of ‘desire lines’. In urban and transport planning ‘desire lines’ refer to the unofficial paths that collective feet make through the landscape over time. These well-trodden paths are both subversive, being illicit, and conversely, the path of least resistance. Desire Lines are paths that form themselves and are evidence of both humanity and the impact of humans in the environment.
Secondly, I use the landscape, and elements within the landscape, to explore what I’m thinking about ‘in the moment’. The moment (or muse) can include an emotion or idea, such as gratitude to a friend or joy in life’s journey.
Often, the inspiration for a painting, is a personal reaction to the zeitgeist and current bigger picture concerns.
A third related theme is an interest in, and love of exercise, and being outdoors.
Finally related to all of the above, it's impossible to paint landscapes, or places or people (in fact anything) without having some awareness in and reaction to climate change and our role in it, so as inferred above, this is also a frequently occurring theme throughout my paintings. I hope my paintings inspire others to actively explore the world around them, as well as their relationship to it.