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 construction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label construction. Show all posts

Friday 17 July 2020

Monet and Streeton meet Windsor Bridge

Windsor is one of the 'Macquarie towns' on the Hawkesbury River created in the early 19th century by Governor Lachlan Macquarie as the foodbowl of Sydney.
Plein air oil painting of the old Windsor Bridge painted by heritage artist Jane Bennett
 TSWB1 Windsor Bridge from western side
2013 acrylic on canvas 46 x 61cm


















Thompson Square, established in 1795 at the centre of Windsor, is thought to be the oldest public square in Australia.
The old Windsor Bridge was a beam bridge built in 1874 for horse-drawn vehicles.
This canvas was painted in 2013 before NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) department had started work on the replacement bridge, 35 metres (115 ft) downstream from the existing bridge.
The bank on the Freeman's Reach side of the Hawkesbury, where I painted this idyllic view marks exactly where the new bridge is now situated.
I painted these scenes in jacaranda flowering season as the bluish mauves offset the bright greens of the foreground.
Plein air oil painting of the old Windsor Bridge painted by heritage artist Jane Bennett
TSWB3 Windsor Bridge early morning from western side
2013 acrylic on canvas 46 x 61cm
Available
The old bridge is an austere construction with modestly proportioned piers and the engineering of the cross bracing  consistent with the challenges of its location.
Plein air oil painting of the Hawkesbury River from the old Windsor Bridge painted by heritage artist Jane Bennett
TSWB12 View from Windsor Bridge in jacaranda season
2015 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm
Available
As you can see from the painting above, the real charm of Windsor Bridge is revealled in its river vistas.
Monet would have loved this spot. And my gallerist, on seeing these works, did ask if I'd painted them in France.
This area certainly inspired Arthur Streeton, one of the Australian Impressionists, who painted his masterpiece "The Purple Noon's Transparent Might" not far from here.
Plein air oil painting of the construction of the new Windsor Bridge painted by heritage artist Jane Bennett
TSWB16 'Construction of the new Windsor Bridge' 2019
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm
Available
But now the timeless harmony of the sleepy river and the Georgian, Victorian and Federation architecture of Thompson Square has been surrounded by a maelstrom of excavation and construction.
Most of the old trees have now been felled.
The new bridge opened to traffic on 18th May 2020.
The new approach road rises up on a large visually intrusive embankment as it cuts a swathe  through the square.
There is now a bitter battle to save the 140 year old bridge from demolition. The RMS has stated that it will start removal in the coming months, but many would prefer the old bridge to be restored and left in situ. 

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Wednesday 17 June 2020

Isolation Gallery- Walsh Bay

Today's painting featured in my Isolation gallery is from over 20 years ago. It shows the redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves.
Isolation gallery-oil painting of redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves by artist Jane Bennett
W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'
1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm
I was 'Artist in Residence' at the Woolloomooloo Fingerwharves during their redevelopment & refurbishment in the late 1990s. Many of the same construction workers later worked on the transformation of Walsh Bay Wharves a couple of years later, so they inherited me as 'Artist in Residence'.
I painted the derelict, fire-ravaged and soon to be demolished Wharves 6-7  from the interior of Wharf 8-9.
The green netting and bright yellow boom contrasts with the red brick and weathered timber of the wharves.
Isolation gallery-oil painting of redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves by artist Jane Bennett
W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'
1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm
I can't believe how much this area has changed since this painting!
Barangaroo has replaced the East Darling Harbour Wharves, aka 'The Hungry Mile', one of the last relics of Sydney's Working Harbour. 
The residents of Millers Point have mostly been relocated, & the area almost resembles a ghost town.
W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'
1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

 
 
 

Friday 25 July 2014

North Barangaroo Headland Park - The thin blue line

My stint as 'Artist in Residence' in my Studio on the top floor of the Sydney Ports Corporation's Moore's Wharf has given me a front row seat to paint the evolution of the former Wharf 3 at East Darling Harbour Wharves (formerly the Customs Shed) into the North Barangaroo Headland Park.
North Barangaroo Headland Park - plein air oil painting of construction of North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio at Moore's Wharf by marine and industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
 MW16 'North Barangaroo Headland Park-
The 'Blue Line' from Moore's Wharf ' 
2011 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm
I painted this in September 2011 from the western window of my Moore's Wharf studio, which overlooks the construction site that will soon be the North Barangaroo Headland Park.
Apart from the recent Open day in June, Barangaroo would still probably be an unfamiliar location to most people,  unless they live or work locally.
In the background of these 2 paintings, Balmain is the headland on the left, Goat Island is on the right, and in the centre distance is Ballast Point in Birchgrove. Ballast Point, formerly a derelict refuelling depot, was refashioned into a park in 2008 by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. I'd been lucky enough to be able to paint a series of paintings at Ballast Point just before its transformation.
Some of the structures which were around the Ballast Point fuel tanks are still in a rusting heap mouldering away behind the White Bay Power Station, and can be seen in a couple of paintings I created on site as Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station.
On the concrete of the former wharf, there's a blue line painted in a series of stylized curves and zig-zags , to divide land from sea. A little like the line painted on many Sydney streets for the marathon of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, which is still visible in the oddest places.
No Olympic athletes here, just the odd local jogger or dog walker.
It's also a weird echo of the seemingly abstract lines of different colours used in its previous incarnation as a wharf, to distinguish pedestrian walkways from truck parking zones.
On the southern side of the line the sign "Headland Park" has been painted on a green background. On the other side of the line "Sydney Harbour" has been painted in the now ubiquitous Barangaroo blue.
Soon after this was painted, excavation began.
According to the Barangaroo Delivery Authority, the coastline is intended to follow the contours of the shore as it was before European settlement.
Liiterally, "cut along the dotted line".
North Barangaroo Headland Park - plein air oil painting of construction of North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio at Moore's Wharf by marine and industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
 MW28 'North Barangaroo Headland Park -
The caissons from Moore's Wharf '
2013 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm

Enquiries about this painting
And, as you can see, they did.
This was painted in February 2013.
By this stage, the skin of the concrete surface has been pierced.
The caissons of the north end of the wharf are now exposed and full of water like a lot of tiny swimming pools.
The geometric symmetry of the wharf still remains, but mounds of sand and gravel hint at the new shoreline yet to come.
Soon the straight edge of the wharf will be broken, the caissons removed and the yellowblock sandstone will be carefully positioned around the new shoreline.
Lashed to the Mast - Plein Air painting, Moore's Wharf

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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