Artist Interview.

When did you decide you wanted to be a painter?
I think I was kind of born an artist. My mum was an artist and art teacher, and from the moment I could hold chalk, a pencil, pen and paintbrush I was scribbling away. And from the moment I could stand I was at an easel. Amazingly, I never painted on the walls … my parents would have killed me! Being an artist was like breathing to me, but the older I got, and as the cynicism of the world started to creep up on me, I began to worry I’d never be able to survive. In the end I went to uni and studied to be an art historian/curator, though finally got to art school. To supplement things I started doing graphic design, which became a bit of an all-absorbing career for a while. But eventually I found my way back to painting full-time. It was like being given oxygen after struggling for breath.

How much schooling did you go through to hone your craft? How did you get to where you are now?
After doing art at school, I went to Monash Uni and studied Visual Arts under Margaret Plant and Memory Holloway. I also had the life-changing experience of studying Renaissance Florence in the History department under the world-renowned lecturer Bill Kent. These people had a massive impact on the way I view life, art and philosophy.

I decided I really wanted to be painting though, so went along to RMIT at night as an unofficial member of a class doing a sort of pre-degree course. I never enrolled, but it helped me to start getting my folio together. I then applied for a few art schools while also researching my Masters in art history at Monash. I went to Melbourne Uni for a while in the Education dept, but didn’t go to the education classes as I never intended to teach, just went to the art classes. It was multi-disciplinary, so I did ceramics, textiles, graphics, drawing and painting. After six months I moved interstate and transferred to Sydney Uni, then converted my Masters into a PhD. While researching my thesis I made friends with the Sydney art legend Thelma Clune who had run a fabulous art gallery in King’s Cross, and we did artworks together. She urged me to give up my academic studies and go visit Paul Delprat at the Sydney Ashton Art School in The Rocks. The next day I rolled up with my folio and on the spot he gave me the William Dobell Scholarship. That day I dropped out of my PhD and never looked back.

Julian Ashton’s is an Atelier style school, so it follows a strict format. First, you learn to draw inanimate objects with charcoal, once you’ve mastered that, you move into life drawing classes still using charcoal as a medium, and eventually you progress to paint. This was the perfect environment for me. I learned about anatomy, light and shade, perspective, and how to see. The figurative foundations from Julian Ashton’s are still part of my work today. Some people have seen my work and actually guessed where I studied!

To hone my skills I’ve also done some great workshops with really talented urban and street artists. I did freehand aerosol classes with @nychos and @deb, stencils with @vexta, large format design and freehand mural painting with @houseofmeggs, spontaneous drawing with @captainearwax, and life drawing with @anthonylister and @kaffeinepaints. Any chance to gain inspiration and share techniques and ideas with other artists is worth it.

Which artists have influenced you?
The first artist I fell in love with was Salvador Dali. I must have been around 12. My family had an amazing book with a lush metallic gold cover (Max Gerard “Dali”, 1968). My mum gave it to me for Christmas 2019 as a gift, and I realised I’d spent so many hours turning those pages as a kid, they’re all falling out of the bindings.

My love of Dali probably explains my preference for figurative subjects, rich colours, intricate detail and a smooth paint surface. The other artists I’ve been influenced by are Albrecht Dürer who is the master of line and melancholy; Egon Schiele who had a really raw and vibrant way of painting, Gustav Klimt who loved patterns which you can see in my works, and Caravaggio who taught me how to look at light and shade and to paint subjects with a real sense of dignity. I’ve also been influenced by some of the theory books that I’ve read over time; like John Berger (Ways of Seeing) and Ernst Gombrich (Art and Illusion), the psychology of perception plus books on symbology and iconography in art.

Although I wouldn’t say there’s any obvious influence on the style of my art, some other favourite artists of mine are Otto Dix, and George Grosz who did the incredibly confronting book of paintings and drawings from the First Word War; Jean-Michel Basquiat who’s texture, bold colour and sense of freedom are the antithesis of my own art but inspire me; and Jackson Pollack, who’s piece “Pasiphae” is one of my favourites. I love passionate art with a strong political message. I’m also a huge fan of @jaw_dmv who I’ve spent a lot of time with as we both had studios at Juddy Roller. His artistic eye and techniques, his way of seeing the world, it blows me away. I love @alexgarantart and have recently got into #andreakowch who’s paintings speak volumes to me. My favourite Australian artist is without a doubt @juan_ford_art who’s works are like drugs straight to the brain, mind-blowing!

You seem to do a lot of portrait work. How do you choose who you will paint next? Do they sometimes choose you?
I’ve met most of my subjects through the fabulous life drawing community in Melbourne, and through my art community. I like painting creative people as they tend to have a sense of complex mystery to them – a public persona, but also a whole private self behind that. In the process of drawing and painting I get to know them fairly well, and I’m very lucky they trust me with their portrayal. It’s important to me that I capture them as authentically and sensitively as I can. I don’t want to just paint the surface as I’m very much intrigued by the human psyche underneath. Sometimes my pieces show the melancholy and beautiful, other times cheeky and playful sides of them. The sitters can be a little confronted, as I think they suddenly see themselves through someone else’s eyes, and that can be a surprise as I sense things about them that they may normally hold quite private; their vulnerabilities, their sweetness, their sensitivity that sits below their power and charisma. But that’s art. So long as I do it with respect.

How did the transition to street art happen?
I started out as a fan of works I saw on the sides of railway lines. It was the work by @rekaone around Melbourne that I first loved – such a beautiful palette and great characters. He’s still a favourite of mine. I met him when Everfresh did a residency at the Ian Potter Centre, and the rest is history; I was hooked.

It’s such a genuine and inclusive community that once I had my foot in the door, I was introduced to artists and galleries, and it all snowballed. After being in the contemporary art world, it was like a breath of fresh air to be hanging out with urban and street artists who have such a relaxed attitude and passionate motivation.

The first offer for me to paint a wall came from @evilkeanevil (such a sad loss to us), he was very encouraging that I should give it a go, though it never eventuated; but he planted the seed. In the end it was @me_lika_davies and @23rdkey who gave me my first wall; they were hugely supportive and patient with me. I was given a nice big wall in the laneway behind @thestockroom gallery in Ringwood and did “The Fingerpainter” – using little sample pots and mistints of paint. I had a great time painting at scale.

I love that street art is a way for the public to engage with art in their everyday lives. It brightens their day, makes places feel more safe and uplifting, entertains, intrigues, and it can make them think about issues. Not everyone is comfortable to go into a gallery, which is really sad. I like to think that when a person can appreciate art in the urban environment they’ll start to think about art in a new way. Eventually they might not feel galleries are so austere. If my art helps anyone take that step into a gallery, and enjoy the experience, then I feel my work is a success.

What are some of the main differences between making your more traditional art and doing street art pieces?
To be honest, there’s not all that much difference between what I do on a canvas, panel, paper or a wall. While most street artists do their mural works with aerosol and are intended to be viewed from a distance, mine are fairly similar to my studio pieces, just bigger. Sometimes they’ve been in restrictive spaces, like narrow laneways, so I figure the viewer is only a couple of metres away, not 50 metres, so I approach them pretty similarly to my studio work. People can come right up close and engage with my murals, or view from a distance; they’ll see different things depending on their perspective. Also a lot has to do with it being realism. And my brain just see things in minute detail. I can paint roughly, but at the moment I’m really enjoying the smooth “fine art” type of murals I’m doing. It makes them quite different to most of the urban work being done so it’s nice to have a bit of a niche.

In terms of technique, the brushes for murals are way bigger and I paint with acrylic paint and water instead of oil and mediums. It’s kind of refreshing and freeing. I admit though, sometimes I do use the super fine brushes for the finer details like eyelashes or the twinkle in an eye! Depending on the mural size, I might use an air gun to block in the base layers, or rollers, but the final work is always with a brush.

I really enjoy the interaction I have with people on the street, in comparison to my lockdown habits inside my studio. I get to hear all sorts of interesting stories about people’s lives. Art is a cool way to connect with different folks that I might not otherwise meet. Age is no barrier, everyone from little kids to old timers stop for a chat. It’s nice. But in both places I always have my music playing and dance around. I have fun. They’re different, but are both really great environments to work in.

Which of your works of art has taken the longest to complete? What was it, and how long did it take?
My memento mori pieces are definitely the most time-consuming pieces I’ve done. “The Navigator” in particular. These paintings are very personal and philosophical, and I spent a lot of time pulling together objects from my family history to form the stories.

“Memento mori” is a Latin expression that was whispered to Roman soldiers after battles, meaning “Remember that you will die”. Memento mori and vanitas paintings, which are a similar tradition, date back to artists like Albrecht Dürer who worked in the 1500s, and carried through the 17th century in Europe. The idea is that by considering our inevitable death, we’re reminded to live life to the full, with passion and zest, and to consider the legacy we leave behind. So for me it’s all about the vitality of life, while accepting that time has it’s toll. In our life we live, we love, we learn, and we experience all kinds of amazing things and we should cherish these. Symbolism and iconography fill these works and provide clever references to intellectual and philosophical concepts which fascinate me. And hey, I love skulls, so I get to paint them.

It’s also a theme tied in with a series of artworks by Graham Sutherland that I saw at the NGV in the Print collection. After the Second World War he did a series of pieces based on the poem “Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man” by the Jesuit Emblemist, Francis Quarles (1638), which has become my favourite poem. It’s insanely clever and beautifully written. All about the stages of life, and how it’s a cycle of development from dependence as a baby, through independence at the height of our lives, and ultimately a decline to a new kind of dependence in our old age. It also equates life with a candle – it burns to live, but by burning it also declines. It’s incredibly beautiful to me. I guess I find beauty in the melancholy … blame Dürer!

So for “The Navigator” I chose to make a tribute to my Dad. I chose his sextant that he used to navigate the globe in his days at sea as a Captain, it’s wooden box with brass handle and the original tag, old leather-bound and embossed books that were handed down through my family (“Strickland’s Queens of England” and “David Copperfield”), my grandmother’s red velvet stole, a skull, and a new heirloom object – a magnifying glass that I bought from the quirky Wunderkammer store in Melbourne. These objects represent my father’s life, his love of the sea, his amazing skill at navigating by the stars, leadership qualities, attention to detail and his love of books and history.

I photographed all these items, played around with them in Photoshop, then began the slow process of creating the brunaille under-layer, followed by dozens of transparent glaze layers over the top. It’s many hundreds of hours of work, over months. This piece was shown in the Cabinet of Curiosities show at @thestockroomgallery, one of the most incredibly well curated and beautifully staged art shows I’ve ever seen.

Other works that I’ve done in this genre have featured symbols like a candle that’s just been snuffed out, a crystal decanter and fallen glass, our huge Webster’s dictionary, cloisonne objects, and other curios in my family’s collection.

The longest mural? That would have to be “Down the Rabbit Hole” that I painted for @walltowallfestival and @juddyroller in Benalla. I was given the wall in the carpark underneath the library, so decided it would be great to paint Alice falling through the library floor into the carpark. I hoped she would encourage kids to go upstairs and look for the book. I had a costume handmade for my young friend BJ, and did a photoshoot of her falling through the air … in reality she was lying on a pile of cushions with her mum holding her foot up in the air by a piece of string, and her aunt sitting behind her back to stop her from falling. From there I did all the design work in Photoshop using images of caves, moss and rocks, playing cards, caterpillars, psychedelic mushrooms, flowers, and all the other objects I wanted to include. I hand drew it onto the wall with chalk without the use of a projector (that taught me a lesson!); it was super complicated.

The concept was pretty grandiose and the wall had very deep grout between the brickwork, particularly when painting with a brush, so this mural took me a long time, a couple of weeks. The result was pretty cool though, and over the time I painted it I had regular visits from a number of kids who always told me Alice In Wonderland is their favourite story. It was a fun project, even if it took a lot longer than I planned. I learned it’s a good idea to visit the wall and check out the surface before you create your design. Some walls call for simplicity while others are primed ready for great detail.

I have been blown away by the incredible efforts and detail you put into your work. A slightly different shade of one colour to overlap another, subtle things that I wouldn’t even think to look for. How important is it for you to get these details into your paintings?
Most of the time I find myself looking deeply at things – it might be a shape, or colour, or the play of light on an object, or the line forms. Anatomy. Details intrigue and entertain me. It is how I see the beauty in the world. I dunno, I guess it’s because I grew up loving Dali? I think it’s why I did a lot of digital retouching over the years too – I just see the tiniest details as if they’re huge. It’s how my brain’s wired.

As far as layering colours or shapes, that probably comes back to my school days when I learned about the methods of Renaissance painters – the glazing technique. It allows you to get incredibly smooth gradations of tone, like for fleshtones and shadows.

I don’t really try to achieve any particular level of detail in my paintings, it just happens. For me there’s no struggle to know when to finish the piece. Once it has a certain balance of overlaid colours, and it feels alive, I dab on the white highlights and I’m done.

How have you been keeping creative during 2020/21? Have the changes in daily living due to COVID-19 altered the way you create?
2020 was a crazy year, and I had to live a pretty fluid and flexible life, like everyone. It started with the bushfires. I was working from my home in Melbourne over the Christmas/New Year – as it was scorching hot and my studio in Juddy Roller was like a furnace – on a piece for the big Australian annual show at @beinartgallery, “Antipodes”. A portrait of the burlesque performer @rubyslippers holding the coloured lametta (tinsel) she uses in some of her performances.

I had the Emergency Vic app on my phone and it started going nuts. Our town of Omeo was in the line of the fire from multiple directions, and on the 4th January it got to within 3 km. We thought it would be lost, and Chinooks and Black Hawks were landing on the oval to evacuate people. Suddenly the wind changed and the town was saved, but it was incredibly stressful. I really struggled to focus on my painting as I was shaking and my heart racing. It was just practice for what was to come.

Next up, I painted my “DJ Eddy” mural for the @cantdotomorrow urban art festival and @justanotheragency, featuring @djeddyhoth, a legendary DJ who plays at Mt Hotham in the Winter snow season and at beach festivals in the Summer. I had a booth at the festival, where I got to meet many of the people who come to see and photograph our street art once we’re done … the community that’s kind of invisible to us except for on social media. The festival was a massive success, with amazing artworks all over the space, a great bunch of artists at their booths, fun crowds, and a real party vibe. We were partying and living life without a care in the world. I even had three of my street art pieces printed on @stompinggroundbeer beer cans! Way to go.

I painted my second mural for the year in Fitzroy, called “Lollipop”. I started it the usual way, with a greyscale grisaille base layer, like I do with all my oil paintings in the studio. I was planning to paint it in full vibrant colour (like my Fingerpainter mural in Ringwood), all bright and cheerful. But COVID made me rethink it. There was so much skepticism at that stage. Heaps of people didn’t believe the pandemic was real and were trivialising it. I started to rethink how I’d approach the mural.

In the end, I thought of the red and blue pills of The Matrix; one to see reality and the other to live in a comfortable illusion. I decided to paint the mural in red and blue. It worked in well with my concept and seemed fitting for the start of COVID. I had a bit of fun with the girl’s expression – giving her a look that might seem cheeky, innocent and fun to some, while surprised and shocked to others. For me, it represented a loss of innocence – what was going to happen to all the kids in the pandemic and how their lives would be impacted and change. The lollipop covered her mouth like a mask. In reality, I had no idea the pandemic would be anywhere near as serious and long-term as it has turned out to be, and that a year later we’d still be in a global crisis.

At that time I was working out of @juddyroller, where I’d had a studio for three and a half years. Suddenly COVID hit us and with uncertainty about the studio, we all moved out. After so many years, the Juddy home was abandoned (but not the crew!). I was going to move my gear into storage to wait until “after” COVID was sorted. Hahaha! Luckily I was chatting to @pimpisatinpalit from @dight_creative_studios and @blackcatgallery, and she offered me a studio. It was an incredible space so I grabbed it. Moved in. Then before I did a single piece of art, I kind of fled Melbourne.

For the rest of 2020 and the COVID lockdowns, I was in Omeo, in the high country; 5 hours from Melbourne. Peaceful, tranquil, gorgeous pastoral mountain views, but still under lockdown for most of the year. Our community was still recovering from the bushfires, so it was pretty stressful on two fronts. I managed to take a few art essentials, thinking it might be for two weeks, but it ended up being for 8 months!

I started playing around with Japanese inks and pens on paper, and using washes of acrylic paint. Once Omeo started to look like a long-term plan, I bought two new easles, set up a proper studio, and got to work on some oil paintings.

My street art community was really great during COVID. People came up with some really clever ideas for projects to support each other. @davidleepereira.art organised limited edition art jigsaw puzzles for a group of us. Mine was my “Lollipop” mural. They sold like hot cakes. @justanotheragency had two COVID exhibitions that I was a part of – small works on matchbooks and Metcards. I did an oil painting “Tawny Frogmouth”, one of my favourite birds, for the Resurrection show at @offthekerb that focussed on the devastation of the bushfires. I painted a deck for the Deckade show by @fortheartco at @novacancygallery and am working on a portrait for the Dark Art show at @beinartgallery in July 2021.

My final mural for 2020 was a bit of a dream job. I’ve been wanting Omeo to get into the street art scene for a long time; every isolated rural community needs a bit of street art love! I was asked to paint for the Cattlemen 100 MTB – a 105 mile / 175 km off-road mountain bike race around the local mountains (@cattlemen100mtb). I painted three cyclists with a backdrop of the Omeo hills, and it was used behind the podium at the presentation. It sits in one of the local cafe/bike shops in the town, @velogrammont. The cool thing was, that having a street artist in town painting a mural became a bit of a community thing. I had the Grade 6 class from the #omeoprimaryschool visit for a school excursion, and I got to do some one-on-one mentoring with a very talented girl from the class, Ryli, who is bound to make waves with her art one day. She helped me with some of the painting.

It was also a weird but fortunate time, in that some of my old design clients came back to me asking if I’d do some graphics over COVID. So I did a beautiful website for @to_the_point_acupuncture and a number of advertising campaigns for @willachpharmacyau. Right now, I’m working on my own website, which I hope to launch soon.

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty great and creative year for me. Fortunately, Melbourne is doing really well now with COVID. We Victorians know how to live in a pandemic and our sense of community is brilliant. It’s something I’ve been really proud of. So I’m finally getting time back in Melbourne and at my new studio. Less bushwalking and cycling, but more art and time spent with my people. Excellent!