The Artist and Her Cat (Self-Portrait)
acrylic and pastel on poly cotton
91.4 x 91.4cm
2024Finalist, 2024 Portia Geach Memorial Award
This self-portrait celebrates my relationship with my studio companion Martini - Tini for short - my 5 year old Abyssinian act.
Scarily intelligent, she is an old soul, always knows what I’m thinking and feeling, and understands periods of intense studio work. ‘Tini’ is immensely creative herself and rules the household with zany splendour; she is one of a kind.
I made this self-portrait sunny and spontaneous - more like a watercolour - yet sketchy too, ‘drawing’ with the paint and leaving traces of the drawing up. The background has been left completely white to emphasise the two of us.
Portrait of the Artist, Christopher McVinish
acrylic on plywood
122 x 122cm
2024Finalist, 2024 Salon dés Refuses (Archibald)
I wanted to paint my partner, Christopher McVinish, a Contemporary Realist artist, in his New York coat for its dramatic potential. The coat is also suggestive of his self-contained temperament and approach to his work as a spy-like observer of people and places: always looking, watching, gathering material for his intriguing visual narratives. The strong highlight reflects the essential use of light in his work. The emerald green backdrop has a peaceful calm energy which I associate with him.
Portrait of Rosemary
acrylic on poly cotton
51.5 x 51cm
20232023 Portia Geach Memorial Award entry
2023 Published on cover of memoir 'Life is Not A Paragraph' by Rosemary Lewis
Night Studio No.2
acrylic on plywood
122 x 62cm
2022Finalist, 2022 Darling Portrait Prize
Finalist, 2024 Brisbane Portrait AwardThis is another version of a self-portrait I’d made which depicts me in the studio late one night as I caught my reflection in the glass door. The overhead lighting exaggerated the shadows and highlights, dramatising a moment of self-doubt; the studio became theatre. This version is full length and is darker to further exaggerate these elements.
It reminds me of the remark John Cage made to Phillip Guston: ‘When you start working in your studio- the past, your friends, your enemies, the art world, and above all your ideas - all are there. But as you continue painting they start leaving one by one, you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.”
Self-Portrait
acrylic on linen
122 x 122cm
2022Finalist, 2022 Portia Geach Memorial Award
This self portrait celebrates courage and resilience: 43 years of continuous exhibiting and making art and being well again after serious illness this year. The winged creatures represent the enigmatic ways that ideas come to me.
Portrait of singer-songwriter T.Wilds
acrylic on canvas
91 x 101.5cm
2021Finalist, 2021 Salon des Refusés (Archibald)
Finalist, 2021 Portia Geach Memorial Award
Finalist, 2024 Portraits Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural CentreT.Wilds is an indie-folk singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist based in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Her voice is delicate yet powerful and instantly captivating. Her reputation has garnered plaudits in the Australian music scene in support slots for the likes of Clare Bowditch and Cat Power, and her collaborations have seen her work alongside international artists such as Howe Gelb, members of Tortiose and Prefuse 73.
Tania wears other creative hats too : organic hair stylist and textile designer, mother of one. She is insightful, strong-minded, curious and daydreamy. Her songwriting is influenced by the beauty of the natural world.
I’ve depicted her listening to a playback of a new song from her forthcoming album. I’ve used motifs of flowers and leaves in repetition and variation to give form, as notes do for music.
Portrait of musician, Jim Silk
acrylic on canvas
152 x 101.5cm
2018Finalist, 2018 Salon des Refusés
Jim is bass guitarist for industry-acclaimed heavy music band, Red Bee.
Based in the Blue Mountains, the band was signed last year to Melbourne record label Dinner With Wolves. Their music is fierce, lush, anthemic and eloquent, hovering on the fringes of metal, prog and hard rock.
Jim is the gentlest, most courteous guy, tall and skinny and Van Gogh-ish looking, but unleashes a mighty inner demon-musical-creature when he's performing. That dichotomy really intrigues me.
He and I initially became friends in a cafe (he moonlights as a barista; I'm a customer). We started trading stories about music and art and enthusing about one another's projects and it's an on-going conversation.
Jim's got a lot going on: touring with the band nationally and internationally is in the offing; being a brand new doting Dad to his baby son; and studying for a university degree.
I've painted him looking towards that big future with the thoughtful determination he possesses. In contrast to the electric blue-green of the portrait I've made his ear red, a subtle nod to the colour in the band's name, and to the aural nature of music.
Melanie Sewing (after Vilhelm Hammershøi)
acrylic on linen
61.5 x 75.5cm
2017Finalist, 2017 Portia Geach Memorial Award
My niece Melanie Liertz is a costume and set designer in the Sydney and Melbourne theatre scenes. In the 2017 Sydney Theatre Awards she won Best Costume and Best Set Design in the category of Independent Theatre (for 'Antigone'). Her profession can often involve long hours of stitching.
A favourite painter of mine is the 19th century Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershøi, known for his tonal paintings of emotionally intense austere interiors with women in concentrated solitude and I wanted to paint Melanie in the manner of his painting 'Young girl sewing' (Anna Hammershøi, the artist’s sister).
My portrait celebrates Melanie's work. And that a flair for sewing and design stretches back through many generations of women in our family history, a strand of which is Danish ancestry.
Beyond (Self-Portrait)
acrylic on canvas
91 x 122cm
2016Finalist, 2016 Portia Geach Memorial Award
To be an artist means, inherently, to be a risk taker. When I paint I feel airborne.
Getting there - going beyond - takes courage, faith, invention, discipline, determination and
creative vision.
Night Studio
acrylic on linen
2014Finalist, 2014 Portia Geach Memorial Award
Late one night in my studio, I noticed my reflection in the glass door. The overhead lighting flooded over me exaggerating highlights and shadows and seemed to dramatise a moment of self-doubt.
Normally a haven and hothouse for invention, for a moment the studio became theatre.
It reminded me of the remark John Cage once made to Phillip Guston: "When you start working everybody is in your studio - the past, your friends, your enemies, the art world, and above all your own ideas - all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave."
Self-portrait with Paper Hat
acrylic on linen
76 x 82cm
2013Finalist, 2013 Portia Geach Memorial Award
Portrait of Christopher McVinish, Artist
acrylic on linen
76 x 80cm
2011Finalist, 2011 Portia Geach Memorial Award
Collection of Tweed Regional GalleryChristopher McVinish is a painter, well known for his contemporary realist urban landscapes, still life and portraiture. He receives many portrait commissions and was an Archibald Finalist in 2011 with his portrait of theatre actor/director, Robyn Nevin. His portrait of actor Colin Friels won the Holding Redlich People's Choice Award in the 2013 Salon des Refuses.
Christopher also happens to be my partner.
I thought it would be interesting to turn the tables and make him the sitter for a change. He has a favourite old 'hoodie' which he often paints in. With the hood up it makes him look like a monk which suits the mood of reverie I wanted to capture, and his inner calm as a person. A Zen-like stillness is also a marked characteristic of his work.
Being devoted to painting for over 30 years is a kind of ordination. And if Christopher had lived in centuries past, I can easily imagine him as a scholar in a bell tower, working with great patience, skill and insight, on some exacting illuminated manuscript.