Industrial Cathedral

Industrial Cathedral
"Industrial Cathedral" charcoal on paper 131 x 131 cm Jane Bennett. Finalist in 1998 Dobell Drawing Prize Art Gallery of NSW Finalist 1998 Blake Prize Winner 1998 Hunter's Hill Open Art Prize

About Me

My photo
Sydney, NSW, Australia
I'm an Industrial Heritage Artist who paints "en plein air".If it's damaged, derelict, doomed and about to disappear, I'll be there to paint it.
Showing posts with label Carleton United Brewery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carleton United Brewery. Show all posts

Friday 10 February 2012

Both sides of the street - My new exhibition "St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst"

Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com
exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com


exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com


exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com
In this exhibition I have hung 16 paintings of Victoria Street.
As the Xavier Art Space is a long corridor, I decided to add another 16 or so paintings of other inner city streetscapes.
Most of these other paintings whether of Pyrmont, White Bay, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst or Waterloo seem to be of pubs or former pubs. Derelict pubs like the Terminus, recently closed pubs like the Hopetoun, pubs that were burnt down in the dead of night under mysterious circumstances like the White Bay Hotel, or pubs that had a narrow escape from these fates and are enjoying a precarious Renaissance like the Iron Duke. There are also 2 paintings of the half-demolished Carleton United Brewery.
A minor irony was that Dr Robert Graham, who had kindly agreed to open my exhibition, was the head of Drug and Alcohol Treatment. Another minor irony is that I am (and have always been) a teetotaller.

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com


exhibition of plein air oil paintings of Sydney by industrial artist Jane Bennett
Hanging my exhibition St Vincent's -In the Art of Darlinghurst
Enquiries about these paintings:
janecooperbennett@gmail.com

All of the paintings in this exhibition were painted "en plein air". Most of the art of other plein air painters concentrates on the natural environment and seems to be painted in a field or a wood. I prefer to paint inner city urban landscapes and all my art that hasn't been painted on a wharf, a ship or a demolition site, is painted by the side of the road.
"By the side of the road " is the common idiom, however this road was actually a street. "On the road" sounds almost romantic, evoking the ghost of Jack Keroac, whereas "on the street" has an air of desperation. I am often "on the road" when I paint - my car is a mobile studio with a fold-up table and chair and a French box easel in the boot at all times. I am not a "street" artist in the sense of a graffiti artist such as "Banksy", as I take my paintings home when I have finished painting them, although I bet that I spend a lot more time actually painting in the street. According to one definition Street Art  is traditionally unsanctioned  as opposed to a government funded initiatives . The artist attempts to have their work communicate with everyday people about socially relevant themes by placing their work in non-art contexts. In that sense, my art is definitely "street".

Many years ago a witless journalist stunned me into silence during a radio interview. After hearing a description of how I explored Sydney's urban landscapes outdoors instead of painting in my studio from photos, he turned the interview into farce by describing my art as  "streetwalking".
English can be a dangerous language full of traps for the unwary.
The word "street" I discovered has some odd quirks of meaning aside from its obvious use as a word for a paved thouroughfare. Some of these carry a lot of pejorative nuances.

Definitions of "Street"
  1.  a situation offering opportunities ("He worked both sides of the street")
  2.  as a depressed environment in which there is poverty and crime and prostitution and dereliction ("She tried to keep her children off the street")
  3. The people who spend a great deal of time on the street in urban areas, especially the young, the poor, the unemployed, and those engaged in illegal activities.
  4. (slang) Street talk or slang. 
  5. (figuratively) a large amount ("He's streets ahead of his sister in all the subjects in school.")
  6. (poker slang) Each of the 3 opportunities that players have to bet, after the flop, turn and river.
  7. Illicit, contraband, especially of a drug:e.g. "street drugs". 
  8. not in prison, or released from prison. ("He's on the street again after leaving Long Bay jail")
  9. Without a home; without the means to afford good shelter.
  10. without a job or occupation; idle.

The term "street" is used with the preposition "in". Something is "in" the street, but "in" or "on" the road. To be "on the street" means to be living an insecure life, often one associated with homelessness or crime. To "hear something on the street" means to learn about something through rumor.
In the Middle Ages, a road or way was merely a direction in which people rode or went, the name street was always reserved for the built road.
The "Man in the street" meaning the ordinary non-expert person, is first recorded in 1831. Street-car is first recorded 1862. Street-walker "common prostitute" first recorded 1590s. Street people is first recorded 1967; street smarts is from 1972; and street-credibility is from 1979.

  The good and bad points of the urban environment are captured by the many meanings of the term "street" . It carries a feeling of fast-paced opportunity, reality and authenticity - but also uncertainty, edginess, decay and even a whiff of danger.

All the photos in this post were kindly taken by Frances Keevil, Director of the Frances Keevil Gallery, who also did most of the work hanging my show
Update

The redoubtable flaneur and photographer Julie of "Sydney Eye" took some great photos at the opening of my exhibition which can be seen at "The poof factor"

Saturday 17 December 2011

Brewer's Droop - Painting the Carleton United Brewery, Chippendale

The southern edge of the Sydney CBD, adjacent to Central railway station incorporating Broadway and Chippendale, was dominated by a walled off 'Empire of Beer' for over 170 years.
Kent Brewery was built by John Tooth and Charles Newnham in 1835. It exploited the fresh water from nearby Blackwattle Creek. However, Blackwattle Creek didn't stay fresh for long, and soon the surrounding area was a notorious slum.
The unregulated and noxious local industries included the Swamp Abattoirs across Parramatta Road in Ultimo, which provided the Char House of the Colonial Sugar Refinery with bones to burn to produce charcoal for filtering sugar.
Plein air oil painting of the Carleton United Brewery site in Chippendale painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
CH4 Pub with no beer- Carleton United Brewery 2
2009 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
Available
When bubonic plague hit waterside Sydney in the first decade of the 20th century, the authorities embarked on a program of slum clearances and 350 Chippendale houses were resumed by 1911.
Tooth's brewery site moved into the vacuum, extending their empire of beer more than 6 acres into the surrounding residential areas. Tooth's owned the western side of Kensington Street, and demolished properties  to construct new brewery buildings, as well as a wall to exclude the public. Yet another wall was built on the northern side of Wellington Street.
You can see this wall running behind the Irving Street Brewery boiler house in the painting above, which was painted during the demolition craziness not long after the property had been bought by Frasers Property for redevelopment.
Tooth’s Irving Street Brewery was built in 1912, and covered most of the land between Carlton and Balfour Streets.
Plein air oil painting of the Carleton United Brewery site in Chippendale painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
CH3 Pub with no beer- Carleton United Brewery
2009 oil on canvas 100 x 75cm
Available

This iconic Sydney landmark is an 180 ft high octagonal brick tapering structure with metal strapping with cracked coping. Brick buttresses transfer the structure to a square base. 
The Irving Street Brewing Tower ceased its brewing operation in 1979, as it was superseded by the New Brewhouse.
It was one of the earliest and most prominent chimney stacks built in the CBD, and one of the last remaining in inner Sydney.
In the 1980s, a large redevelopment saw the demolition of all but one of the original Kent Brewery buildings. and Carlton and Uniting Breweries purchased it.
Until 1983 there were 1000 personnel at the brewery including lab staff, engineers, plumbers, fitters and turners, coppersmiths, blacksmiths, coopers, trades assistants, storemen, drivers and security.
In 1983 Tooth and Co were taken over by the Adelaide Steamship Company and the brewing assets were sold to Carlton and United Breweries and in 2003 the brewery closed forever.
Frasers Property bought the 5.8 hectare site in 2007 and embarked on a wildly ambitious $2 billion urban renewal project. It incorporates mixed use development including high density apartments,student accommodation in Kensington and Abercrombie Streets, a shopping centre, office blocks, and the old Brewery will be turned into a boutique hotel.
In my paintings you can see how the Irving Street Brewery building resembled a ruined castle on an island in the middle of a moat. It was a dreadfully boggy site after all the other buildings were clear felled around it and therre was a perpetual pool of water surrounding the old brewery.
Some heritage features have been selectively kept in the mix. Run down terraces in Kensington Street have become "Spice Alley", a funky "Eat Street", the sandstone gateway has been kept and the Irving Street Brewery building has now been adaptively reused as a community facility while also housing the site’s sustainable features including the tri generation plant providing the power, heating and cooling.
Chippendale, once an embarrassing slum, is now the fashionable hipster enclave known as Central Park.

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Wednesday 15 September 2010

Barangaroo : Red Square, the Drill Rig and a little archaeology

Barangaroo:

plein air painting of Wharf 8 at Barangaroo by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett


plein air painting of 'Red Square' Wharf 8 at Barangaroo by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
'Red Square' oil painting on canvas
30 x 103cm 2011
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This canvas is still a little unfinished, but you can get the general idea of what I'm attempting to do here. It's an interior versus exterior painting, playing with light, transparency and reflections. Unlike the other doors in the loading dock, which are solid slabs of brilliant scarlet, these are translucent fluted sheets that both reveal and conceal the view. 
The "Red square" to the left was the bright scarlet entrance to the passenger walkways allowing access to the cruise ship

"The Red Square is haunting Painting"

In 20th century art history a famous quote about early abstract art was "The red square is haunting painting", about the work by Kazimir Malevich and similar Russian painters involved with "avant-garde" movements such as Constructivism and Suprematism during the 1920's. The red square has certainly haunted this building! It reminds me how quickly the 'new' and 'modern' passes into history. It is ironic how "Modernism" is now a historic term referring to the art of 50-80 years ago, and the architect of this former wharf has either deliberately or unknowingly raided its vocabulary!
De-construction of Constructivism! Art chasing its own tail.
In the background, realism intrudes into the chilly geometry with the two drill rigs of the geophysics team, Coffey and Macquarie Drilling.

The Drill Rig at South Barangaroo
plein air oil painting of drill rig at Barangaroo by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
"The Drill rig" 2010 oil painting on canvas 31 x 41cm 
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A core sample is being taken on South Barangaroo, to make sure that there are no nasty little surprises when construction starts.
Incidently, all of Barangaroo is landfill.
When I painted on the K.E.N.S. Site (the "Kent, Erskine, Napoleon and Sussex street block " which is now the new Westpac headquarters) next to Moreton's pub (known as the 'Big House' by the wharfies) I saw steps that were unearthed that once belonged to an early 19th century Fingerwharf, and must have roughly coincided with the original shoreline. They were halfway between Kent and Sussex Street - so anything west of Sussex Street is fill.
You can see my paintings of the KENS Site on my Urban Landscape page.
Don't forget your toothpaste!
A couple of the men from Coffey and Macquarie Drilling have worked at the same sites that I have painted at!
These include the former A.G.L. Site at Mortlake, developed by Rosecorp (which is now known as 'Breakfast Point') and the Carleton United Brewery site at Chippendale, which is still underway.
One wet and miserable day at the Carleton United Brewery site, I was offered some of the old bottles and jars to paint by the archaeologists, instead of struggling through the mud laden with an easel to paint the chimney in the pouring rain.
A few weeks later, the archaeologists generously made their spare finds available for the construction workers to souvenir. I suppose that an old brewery site wouldn't lack bottles! I took a small selection of 19th century ceramic and glass bottles, including perfume jars, ink bottles and a big brown 'Geneva' bottle (mother's ruin or gin), but one of the men on the drill rig team had a real prize - a small ceramic jar with lacy craquelure that once contained an early 19th century version of toothpaste!
When we realized that we both were proud owners of these relics, I brought my paintings of the CUB finds and the bottles to Barangaroo and he brought in his toothpaste jar for me to paint.
See paintings of the Carleton United Brewery construction site on my post
Brewers Droop - Painting the Carleton United Brewery
My Carleton United Brewery still life can be seen on my 'Urban Landscape' page on this blog.
This is their 2nd last hole before the drill rig team pack up and leave Barangaroo.