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So much fun setting myself up at the Harbour Street Studio! This is a working artists' studio and gallery; still working out retail options. You'll find me here most days of the week - usually later in the afternoon. Visitors can wander up any time via the Collective Cafe downstairs (open 7 days a week). You are welcome to come and check out the art, make purchase enquiries or just come and say hello. 
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Some of the work by various contributing artists as exhibited in the recently held Extinction Exhibition, Harbour Street, Oamaru. Gary & Sir Tim coming to The Manor Estate this Saturday 14th of September for a night of comedy. Liz Heenan of The Manor has asked me to hang my work for the occasion. Still a few tickets available - if you're in Oamaru come along - doors open 6.30pm! 
  At this time when the Earth is suffering from the thoughtlessness of too many human beings I felt the desire to paint something wild, stark and basically empty. I have painted this from my imagination however, it feels very familiar to me.
Now titled And It Was Very Good.  Just got my brand new DL flyer back from the wonderful Alan at Brackens Print, Oamaru. It's double-sided and folds into thirds. Colours are stunning in hardcopy. I'm posting it out to galleries, hotels, and private collectors this week. Contact me if you would like one! If you have suggestions of other places that might be interested (galleries, cafes, tourist spots) please let me know in the comments.   Just finished this painting, "To the Waters and the Wild." After posting on Facebook many people generously got into the spirit of helping me with a title. My good friend, Ben, with his artistic and literary soul, as usual, totally in tune, came up with some lines from a Yeats poem and hence, my choice.
For further information on this painting please refer back to the Home page gallery. 
These paintings are for sale in Koru NZ Art, on the corner of Stuart and Castle Streets, Dunedin. The lovely Sandie will always make you welcome if you wish to wander in and have a look at the real thing – which is worth it, because no photos ever show the vibrancy of many of the colours that I use. You can also email Sandie at Sandie.dd@xtra.co.nz Image 1: My Sienna Track, Ghosts in Their Country, Twilight Dreaming (framed print) Image 2: My Sienna Track Image 3: The Quiet Mind Image 4: Ghosts in Their Country (below text) My Sienna Track I began painting this after one of my many walks out on a favoured track in the small, remote Aboriginal community of Arlparra, NT, Australia, where I lived and worked for a number of years. Everyone looked forward to when the clouds would build up after weeks and weeks of hot, clear, blue skies; no relief from the searing sun that brought temperatures up to and into the fifties. As the wet came to Darwin, 1,500 odd kms from the central desert, we would all hang out for some of it to make its way south. When the clouds started building, they became a glorious part of the most vibrant, breathtaking sunsets. So many colours would appear in the sky, almost like a lava lamp as they wove and merged, hanging there even as the sun dropped below the horizon, finally fading long after the light disappeared. The Quiet Mind This painting developed from a morning meditation where I had been particularly distracted; that thinking where one attempts to fix the mind on something beautiful. Yes, yes, sitting by the still water…oh maybe not, now I can see things under the water. I know, a tree; yes, I love trees. I will set my mind on a tree…oh dammit, now I have odd wildlife up the tree. I will picture myself in a bubble…ah yes, I am floating, floating…whoops, something else caught in a bubble…floating…floating…. Ghosts There are ghosts in their country and like ghosts they will fade away remembered only in dark night stories when cooking fires distort faces into fear memory into myth  Ghosts in Their Country
This work was inspired by a poem I wrote while living in Aboriginal country, thinking about all the harm done by colonisation and also by those who came with their bibles, meaning well but always according to their own cultural values; values that did not necessarily translate so well. The broken crosses represent the broken promises that came with the Christian faith. The cross is in the first one as a harbinger of things to come; in the second as a shadow that is now heavily shadowing the people and the land; the last is the words, small because they appear as a pattern that needs closer inspection, as does the entire history. 
A few months back I had a great time making this video to showcase the Oamaru art scene and some of the artists. Happy to have had over 8,500 views to date. This is a beautiful part of Aotearoa, down here in the south. This was my first crack at writing, editing and producing film - let me know what you think in the comments!
To check out the video click HERE. |
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August 2021
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