Winner
Andrew Fisher Portrait Prize, Gympie Regional Gallery, 2018
Several years ago a series of very difficult events unfolded culminating in my getting a serious health issue which meant that I couldn’t work, lost my business, my clients. Long story short, new drug, health restored. I started drawing gardens rather than buildings. I’m “Back from Black” and in Maria’s Garden !
Oil on linen, 60 x 100cm
Finalist, Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing 2018
It is at the clothesline that Maria’s garden combines practicality and decoration in an uniquely Australian way. The Hill’s Hoist is ringed by geraniums and mown grass, with an outer ring of pot plants and flowers, all grown from ‘cuts’.
Pastel, charcoal on Arches paper, 75 x 109 cm
Kedumba Drawing Award, 2017
Orange Regional Gallery (acquired)
This is the sixth drawing of Maria’s garden. The beans cover every frame and trellis. The space is closed in, a vigorous green wonderland, that left unchecked, could take over the house.
Pastel, charcoal on Arches paper, 56 x 90cm
Winner, Drawing from Nature
ArchiGraphicsArts Competition of Architectural Drawings, Moscow, 2017
I felt it was very important to show the detail, because much of Maria’s philosophy “waste not, want not” is in those details. Maria has worked hard all her life since she arrived here at 14 years of age from a war torn Italy where she and her family often did not have enough to eat. Through her hard work and thrift, her garden has supplied her family with food. Nothing is ever wasted. The structural materials that make up her climbing frames, sheds and tools have been recycled from elsewhere. Plants come from cuttings and seeds she has saved. Water is collected from the roof, directed into rubbish bins and ladled out with a saucepan tied to a broomstick.
Charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 45 x 72cm
Finalist, Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing 2017
It had been several months since I had first sketched in my neighbour Maria’s garden and I found it overtaken by the beans that now covered every frame and trellis. The space was more closed in, rooms of green with a central corridor, and it feels like those beans could take over the house, even the world. We had a harvest moon at this time, and again the garden was transformed by the intensity of the light of a super-moon, drained of colour but with a sharp clarity of detail and shadow.
Charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 68 x 108cm
Finalist Portia Geach Memorial Award
Semi-finalist Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
This painting is the sequel to the ‘EP Addiction’ ( scroll down). A long time devotee of the Easton Pearson label, I put on this limited edition brocade coat and I am again transported to a more glamorous world. Four months ago Pam and Lydia announced they were closing their shops and discontinuing their fashion line. I did feel bereft – is this the end of my addiction?
Oil on canvas, 55cm x 110cm
Semi-finalist Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2015
Well it’s all about me… and yeah, I’m a bit obsessive as well.
I am very interested in art and Pam Easton and Lydia Pearson are definitely in that category – and that expression is evidenced in their fashion label Easton Pearson, particularly in their special one-off pieces. I put on this coat of guinea fowl feathers and I am transported somehow, I feel better about the world. It costs a lot of money. I agonize for two weeks and run through the reasons for and against. Then I wake up at 2.00 am. I have to do a portrait, a self portrait – and I need the coat! It all makes sense. The family say it is an E.P. addiction – and I am NOT interested in rehab. I’m done with painting feathers though.
Acrylic on canvas, 100cm x 160 cm
“Janet”
acrylic on canvas, 60 x 40cm
I started sketching Janet several months ago, me wanting to improve my life drawing skills and she not being so well, enjoying the company and interested in the exercise. We were only a few weeks in when she got her diagnosis. I found my drawing skills deteriorating – actually got worse the more I did. I think sitting and studying each other with that knowledge was just too difficult.
At one point I resorted to sketching her dogs. We did continue on – almost as a joint project, with me showing her compositional sketches, discussing what clothes and jewelry she might wear. I wanted to do the portrait with a more serious look – I guess that was coming through in my sketches.
At that point we turned to photographs and I got this great shot of her smiling. That was the look she wanted and she was correct. It highlighted her eyes, her smile. Two weeks before she passed away and when I was about to starting painting, she asked if I had enough material – she did not think she could manage that smile again. But she did manage that smile many more times, and I would say “Hey Janet, there is that smile!” – and she would smile again.
JaneGrealyArtist 