By |

Afternoon at Narrow Neck, 101cm x 132cm,acrylic on canvas, framed in Tasmanian Oak, 2025. This picture is not available , It was commissioned from this website.

I made this work as a result of a query from a couple who view my website and saw my Blue Mountains paintings. They wanted an image of a place special to them. It happened to be a place that I love painting. The work was made from a series of photographs that I took in the last Summer days of 2024 and the mountains turned on a spectacular sunset that evening. This vantage point is about halfway along the dirt road that leads across Narrow Neck, near Katoomba.

By |

Afternoon Storm Clouds, Point Pilcher, 61cm x 122cm, acrylic on linen, 2024– sold

This is my studio version of my earlier plein air work from an earlier post on this website. My studio paintings are more detailed and refined than my plein air works which are recorded quickly and expressively, but they are usually more imaginative and inventive too. I work from my photos but I always stray away from the photo-mechanical image of the photo and into a more interior space. I think this is a good example of what happens when I’m in a comfortable, controlled environment, with good appropriate music, lots of breaks and time to think.

By |

Sunrise, Evans Lookout, 61cm x 122cm, acrylic on linen, 2024– sold

The Sun’s early rays bouncing off the underside of the nights retreating clouds reminded me of Homer’s description of The Child of Morning calling it rosy-fingered Dawn. So in some ways this is a Romantically inspired picture. In other ways I wanted a strong geometric composition that, at least for me, was reminiscent of my early heroes of American Abstract painting like Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. A homage that is also romantic for the heroic days of Modernism. The new shoots on the leaning gum and the sun’s morning rays are both images of promise and renewal.

By |

Sun Patterns at Mount Solitary, 61cm x 122cm, acrylic on linen, 2024 – sold

The foothills of this rocky ridge that appears to float in the Jamison Valley are rippled like wind swept waves, moving across a fluid surface. In fact they take the form of waves because they are subject to the same forces of wind, water, heat and gravity that we see at a beach or from a boat. They are also, like waves, subject to time and rhythm, only in the case of these hills and escarpments it is the rhythm of geological time. The clouds above, also subject to these forces, allows patches of sunlight to ripple across the crests of rock, fern and trees below, creating beautiful patterns that drift and change as the afternoon unfolds.