A personal collection of various works that I love and the stories behind them.
Click/Tap here for the Sleep series…
A Requiem for Donald
Acrylic on Canvas, 2021
183 x 213cm
More about the work here…
A Requiem for Donald is a painting for my dear friend of nearly 40 years. Donald Hall was a musician and writer, as well as a beautiful influence on many people.
I was his live-in carer for the last several months of his life, and often he would play the piano while I prepared meals for us. It was a beautiful time we shared together.
This work was painted about 2 months after he passed away, when I could no longer sleep. Donald is seen in his red, upstairs music room, gathering energy to play.
It was Donald’s wish that his old house, the “Blessed Academy”, be a place of music learning and performance, spreading his love of music and beauty. It felt appropriate to me to gift the painting to the house, where it will hang in the main music room and feel like our beloved friend is there, joining in the fun.
Eugene Gilfedder performing some of his poetry for Donald and Tom Adeney playing guitar at an exhibition opening
city under water
Acrylic on hand-crafted board, 2021
80cm diameter
$3,000
More about the work here…
The constantly changing face of a city is recorded in it’s older buildings. The clock tower of Brisbane’s City Hall which was once the tallest building, now seems to be drowning in it’s lofty, modern neighbours and can only be glimpsed from a few vantages such as this singular point on the nearby Story Bridge.
I feel that these changes also reflect our change from looking at public clocks in general to our private mobile devices. Drowning in an insular life.
Genesis
Acrylic on canvas, 2010
122 x 153cm
More about the work here…
A painting based on the breathing and the alchemical nature of air, fuel and fire of my old motorcycle, a 1987, Yamaha FZX750
The FZX 750 is a concept bike based on the V-Max and is pretty rare, I think that there are only about 40 of them in Australia.. Needless to say, I loved it! Loved the sound and feel of it’s acceleration.. The Genesis engine was developed for it and the FZ 750 and went on to be used in the YZF-R1
My old FZX750, such a beautiful bike!
The painting isn’t for sale, but I have produced limited edition prints. Find them here…
Creative Fire – Asher Bowen-Saunders
Acrylic on Canvas, 2016
97 x 97cm
More about the work here…
Sleep informs many creative artists, Asher is an acrobat and contemporary dancer based in Brisbane. In her painting, I am looking at the creative inspiration that sometimes comes to us in dreams as well as Asher’s specific creative fire.
Actually this work with Asher inspired the whole sleep series! At the time I was earning some income as a deep tissue masseur for physical performers and Asher sent me a message saying that she’d “.. love to see what she looks like through the eyes of my paintbrush”. Asher turned up after a day of working as a ‘living statue’ and as she was tired, I suggested that she just have a snooze after her massage and I could paint her like that as I’ve always been fascinated with sleep.
Whilst working on her painting, I began to muse upon the contrast between the energetic natures of these highly active performers and their sleeping forms and dreamlife. Childhood memories came to me of watching my mother sleeping, and what seemed to be a shadow floating over her closed eyes. I imagined this to be either her soul or dreams moving around her.
I’m still working with the sleep series…
Sentience
Acrylic on hand-crafted circular board, 2022
120cm diameter
$6,000
More about the work here…
The Sentience series was inspired by observing the trees during a Vipassana meditation course. About half way though the 10 day, silent forest retreat, I found myself looking up at the giant blue gums. Their silent communication became quite palpable as well as the sense of the very long time their conversations must take, days rather than hours as their lives are much longer and slower than ours.
Breath through the trees were as my own breath passing through my lungs’ tiny air-sacks. The weighty energy of dhamma drawing in and out of the earth of my consciousness, reflected on a massive scale between earth and space through the sentient trees.
There has been extensive research into the sentience in plant life, highlighted, for example, in books by Monica Gagliano, Suzanne Simard and Peter Wohlleben, which indicates that the conversations continue both through the air, via scents, and underground via the mycelium of fungi. Accordingly, on the unseen verso of this work I’ve painted the unperceived, underground portion of this conversation
See some more images and sales info here!
Creating a tondo…
Under the Bodhi tree – the meditator disappears
Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 2022
122 x 152cm
$8,000
More about the work here…
Connecting meditation and the consciousness of plants, inspired by a mediation retreat where there were several Bodhi trees. Sometimes it feels as if the meditator is not there, only the atmosphere around one. In the painting the disappearing meditator is echoed upside-down, relating to the underground communication of plants.
Under the Bodhi tree – the meditator disappears in my studio
Find out more about this work!
Drawing the initial ideas for this painting whilst I was serving at a Vipassana meditation centre at night after the day’s work and meditation sessions
Band of Gold – Since you’ve been gone
Acrylic on Canvas, 2020
152 x 102cm
$6,000
More about the work here…
In this painting I am looking at the long life of the ‘New Farm Cliffs’, in Brisbane. I imagine the breath of wind flying across the cliffs, time blowing past our beautiful houses, bridges and lives, leaving only the cliffs and river again. All life is exquisite and transitory.
For me it the cliffs are the eternal natural gold within this place. To give the cliffs both emotional solidity and visual translucency, I’ve used gold leaf, increasing the reflected interplay of light as I glaze/paint over it.
Band of Gold (now that you’ve gone) is part of the Mountains of Gold series, which explores the question of where the ‘gold’ is in nature. Is the gold within the intrinsic beauty of nature, or is the gold palpable with us profiting by its natural resources. This landmark area of inner city Brisbane continues to be a source of gold for us, but also relaxes the heart of everyone who walks over it, under it and who dreams over it as they cross the Story bridge..
Glance of Brahma
Acrylic on Canvas, 2016
170 x 240cm
$16,000
More about the work here…
All our lives, histories and dreams are but a moment in the passing glance of Brahma.
When looking at both the size and lifespan of the planetary nebula known variously as the Helix, Eye of God or NGC 7293 it is easy to imagine the minute scale that we occupy in the universe. If Brahma creates by looking, how many galaxies are formed in a glance, or in a breath?
Redon’s Cyclops came up when painting this work, the almost startled innocence of Polyphemus as he stumbles across the naiad, Galatea, counterpointed with Redon’s forebodings of war and loss. Dreams and associations, we see forms in earthbound clouds, the dust of the universe, smoke and our perspective of the visible stars.
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