Edvard Munch
What is art?
Art grows from joy and sorrow - but mostly sorrow
It grows from man's life -
Is art a description of this life this movement?
Shall one depict the different pleasures - the different misfortunes -
or shall one only see the flower - whose nature, substance and vibration are determined by the joy and pain?

I do not believe in an art which has not forced its way out through man's need to open his heart -
All art, literature as well as music must be brought out with one's heart blood.

I've been working at an increased pace lately and trying to keep to schedule. Hopefully I will produce enough work for an active exhibiting year. The danger is always to produce works of quality and that don't begin to be work by formula.

The drawing trip to Mt Yarrowyck was interesting and inspiring. I saw the cave paintings and drew the landscape view across the valley. From the initial drawing and it's subsequent drawings will come hopefully a deeper more abstract interpretation of the rich cultural and visual nature of the place. I have sent my works down to the Melbourne gallery and have an exhibition lined up for July in Sydney. This exhibition I will be sharing with friend and fellow artist Robyn Jackson. The world situation speaks constantly of violence man against man and the slump in the market which has caused many people to come down from a very affluent position to a less affluent position. It's funny the priorities of the press. It is easy to mistake reports for information, viewpoints from facts. Painting landscapes can seem a little irrelevant at times and yet it is the land that holds true through all the vagaries of time.

The first week of January has finished and I start work again tomorrow. The long Christmas/New Year break has been revitalising. It has mainly been taken up with family gatherings, unpacking for the new house, reading and painting. I have gone out in the landscape to draw when I can.

Last week I drew at Dangar Lagoon which was formed glacially first then through sedimentation. It was a picnic area in the late 1800s and early 1900s for people from the Uralla area. Agricultural use of the land and draining for goldpanning has denuded the landscape. It is still a haven for birdlife however and the horizontals of grass, water, scrub are attractive to an artist. A few years ago my painting of the area showed no water at all whereas now it has plenty of water which is great to see.

At the weekend I will draw at Mt Yarrowyck outside of Armidale. Mount Yarrowyck Nature Reserve protects an Aboriginal cave painting site. The artwork is between 150 and 550 years old and the area is part of the traditional land of the Anaiwan people. The natural features of the land and the wildlife in it feature in the Aboriginal culture of the area. They are part of the dreaming stories.

In my days off I completed a few small works based on the Flinders area and the Tablelands area. I also have been preparing two larger canvases by layering textures and colours in preparation for works based on the outback landscape. I like to have a dense background to my painting with colours and textures of different kinds showing through the final work. I find it gives a richness and complexity to the work that I enjoy.

Art in the new year

Today is the second last day of 2008 - a day to reassess the previous year and look to the future years. It is so easy though to forget the day we are in and live for these two. It is a cliche but always worth a reminder that plans are just that - plans - they are not a reality that we live in. Today - here at the keyboard - is my reality. As I sit here the washing machine rumbles, the sun shines in a clear deep blue sky and the wind rattles the windows. Today is a painting day.

Despite the preceding I have plans for 2009. A new plan is for an exhibition at the end of the year in Brisbane and participation early in 2009 in a group show in Melbourne. It is the second time I have exhibited in Brisbane and the first time in Melbourne so I am looking forward to that very much. Images of the works I will send to Melbourne are here.

I have been thinking lately about Monet's art philosophy. For him his art governed his life. It became more than a "depiction" or a response to his landscape. He didn't demand of himself that he convey a message via his art. He didn't see it as his purpose to embody a concept in his line, colour and forms. These were things placed on his art from the outside by theorists who were placing him in the line of historic movements. The human need for order dictates that we place people, including artists, within an explanation.

Have been busy with preparations for Christmas. I have just returned recently from a family reunion and am feeling very thankful for the large and caring family I come from. A lot of the relies and friends I haven't seen for several years. We have all changed in many ways but are essentially the same as we always have been. I have so many ideas of directions my work could take. I am looking forward to spending a long stretch of time doing nothing but painting following Christmas. I will do some works based on my current landscape but will do some sketches from my recent European trip. I am preparing for my next trip by checking out accommodation, routes and air fares etc. I will go to London and New York. I am excited at the prospect of seeing the Turners in London and seeing the galleries in New York.

I have been moving house over the last few weeks. As a consequence I haven't gotten to do very much painting at all. This is a shame as a couple of people have been wanting to purchase my work. It is a nice predicament to be in but worrying as it is a lost opportunity. Two of my works are currently showing in the Summer Moments Exhibition at the Art Moment Gallery in Sydney. This exhibition continues until December 24th. One of the works is based the Northern Tablelands where I now live. It is of Wollomombi Gorge. The other is of the dry golden paddocks of the farmland around the area when there is very little rain. Since completing this work the landscape has changed as plentiful rain has turned the area to a range of rich greens.

Provence

Have been looking back through the photos I took on my trip to France. Some here of the house we stayed in and some of the town in Provence near in which we stayed. I may do some paintings from this trip but the quaint window-boxed houses have really been done to death. They are so beautiful that they match any picture-postcard image of them. In a painting they would probably look false to those who hadn't seen them in real life. They look so beautifully like a cliche. I completed some pen and wash sketches there but am not sure if I will take them further.

These last few weeks have been taken up with painting, house hunting and caring for sick relatives. The first is the one I most enjoy. I was happy to finally finish a painting to the stage where I was happy with it. Sometimes this happens quickly and the work can be finished in a couple of longish intensive bursts. Other times, as with this one, it can take months of working on it, leaving it, working on it again etc etc. This work I began in early 2008!

I am living in the Northern Tablelands area now. I always paint my immediate environment as I am reacting to the beauty to be found there. On Sunday I drove out to Ebor Falls to see once again this area of the gorge country. I find I need to regularly walk in the bush and sketch the rocks, water, trees and hills. This gives me a store of immediate information. My resulting work has an imediacy that comes from this. Those who understand abstraction can see that a good abstract work originates in keen and particular perception. Interestingly when adding to a couple of images in one of my last posts they were transformed. They do have their own life.

Life has been hectic lately and it is sometimes difficult to find the long stretches of time necessary to get involved fully in my art work. Family and work take up a lot of time as all artists would be aware. To be an artist is to be a juggler and an exercise in passion and commitment. Art work must be as much a priority as the aforementioned ones. Art is an act not a result. I believe that in times where nothing is being produced that appears to be satisfactory at the time that the time spent in the act of artmaking is contributing at some level to the work that is in the end produced. It is not time wasted but rather time of great creativity. It is the thrashing around in the quarry before the building is assembled.



I have been asked for a small painting of the area I live in. I have a large one that has been on the go for a while now. I have been asked to put work in an exhibition in Sydney later in the year. All very exciting. The weather is changing here and the icy winds of winter are clearing for clear blue skies. The blossoms have gone, the bulbs are flowering and spring is clear and beautiful. There is plenty of inspiration in this New England landscape.

I have just arrived home from my trip to France and Italy. I spent most of my time in France with the last week being a whistle-stop trip to Italy. I spent a week in Paris before spending two weeks in a house in the country in Provence. The time in Provence was the highlight for me. We were in an old farmhouse just outside the little town of Eyguiere. Using this as a base we took trips to Arles, Van Gogh's town, Aix-e-Provence and many neighbouring villages with their open-air cafes, rugged limestone backdrops and local small markets. Aix-en-Provence claims Cezanne as their own. A highlight for me in particular was seeing Cezanne's Mont St Victoire. Mont SV was Monet's haystack being painted by him again and again. The mountain dominates the skyline of Aix where he was born and spent most of his life.

I am putting here a few preliminary images from my trip to the Flinders last year. It was a dry but beautiful time. The flowers that usually colour the area in October were very few and far between. The drought had taken hold here as it had over vast areas of Australia