Much of the time, dog park is empty of people. Tall trees and birdsong conceal the fact that the park lies within a highly urbanised inner-city suburb. This Tuesday morning, it is packed.
Oil on linen, 38 x 60 cm
New Farm
Maria’s Garden, Back of House
Finalist, Lyn McCrae Memorial Drawing Prize, Noosa Regional Gallery 2018
Maria and her husband constructed rooms under the house, the chook shed, an outside oven and climbing frames for the beans and other vegetables. Water was diverted from the roof into garbage bins and Maria uses a saucepan tied to a broom handle to distribute water to the plants. Surrounded by new development, Maria’s house and garden are unlikely to survive the increasing pressure for higher density living.
Charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 67 x 108cm
Maria’s Garden, Clothes Line
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
Maria’s Garden, Summer Harvest
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
Maria’s Garden, Shed
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
Boarding House, New Farm
Finalist, Elaine Birmingham National Watercolour Prize 2017
I am interested in the remnant spaces and landscape between and behind buildings, and buildings that are unassuming, which may not even register with passers by. Are these places used and familiar to people or are they unnoticed, even abandoned? On a pre dawn walk I saw this boarding house – the windows lit like jewels.
Watercolour 46 x 92cm
Maria’s Garden, Path
Stanthorpe Art Prize
Two of my works, “Maria’s Garden, Path” and “Moonlight Trampoline” have been selected as finalists for this year’s Stanthorpe Art Prize. With $33,000 in awards, more than 1400 images were submitted from 507 artists from Australia and overseas. This exhibition is the highlight of the Stanthorpe Art Festival which runs from 3rd June to 17th July.
The second in this series, “Maria’s Garden, Path” is of my neighbour’s garden, with its history of Maria’s long marriage and Italian post war migration.
Morning Next Door
“Morning Next Door” has been selected by juror Rodrigo Lopez for his Observational Juror’s Award in the American Society of Architectural Illustrators Architecture in Perspective 31 Exhibition opening in Boston in September this year.
JaneGrealyArtist 