The majority of the
paintings were completed during a 12 month stay in Canberra. The works
depict diverse city locations - building sites, road-works, a local
pool. The works oscillate between the representational and the
abstract; they depict identifiable places and scenes, and at the same
time are animated by the powerful abstract qualities inherent in
‘drawing with the brush’.
All the works are built around the artist’s intensive life drawing
practice. In the plein air tradition, each subject is explored through
sustained life drawing on site. Through drawing, the artist seeks to
uncover a fresh and intense response to each motif, revealing vital
abstract qualities within the subject’s representational integument.
The paintings are executed in the studio; however the works do not
simply render the preceding drawings in another medium – they take
those discoveries that can only emerge from intensive and committed
drawing in the presence of a living subject, and develop and explore
these discoveries in oil paint.
