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 painter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painter. Show all posts

Friday 9 September 2011

Power

  1. Possession of controlling influence having great influence or control over others
  2. (physics) the rate of doing work; measured in watts (= joules/second)
  3. Possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done  
  4. The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively.
  5. The ability or official capacity to exercise control; authority.
  6. Physical strength
  7. a prerogative, privilege, or liberty
  8. Forcefulness; effectiveness
  9. A specific capacity, faculty, or aptitude. 
  10. to travel with great speed or force
  11. Of or relating to the generation or transmission of electricity
  12.  Power (physics), the rate at which work is performed or energy is converted
  13. Electric power, the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by a circuit
  14. Human power, the rate of work performed by a human
  15. Motive power, an agent used to create motion

Definitions of 'power'

Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett

WBPS85 ' White Bay Power Station'  2016

oil on canvas 61 x 91cm

Available for sale







11. 'Of or relating to the generation or transmission of electricity...'

.White Bay Power Station was originally built by the Department of Railways to supply more power for Sydney’s growing Electric Tramway System in 1912 (and was later expanded for the City and Suburban Railway Electrification in the mid 1920s)The power station was constructed in two stages. The first stage, built between 1912 and 1917, consisted of a boiler house, standing roughly where the present boiler house stands, and part of the turbine hall and switch house. The second stage, which commenced in 1925, saw the completion of the turbine hall and switch house.
After the Second World War, the first boiler house was demolished and, between 1950 and 1958, replaced in two stages with the present boiler house.
Demand for power from White Bay waned when the trams were abolished*. By the 1970s, the demand had diminished to such an extent that the second boiler house was pulled down and the turbines sold.
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
WBPS83 'Coal Loader +
Chimney White Bay Power Station' 
2016 oil on paper 9.5 x 9.5cm
Available for sale

Enquiries about other White Bay Power Station paintings





















The power station was decommissioned on 25 December 1983.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the power station was gradually stripped, except for items identified for heritage conservation.
In August 2000, Pacific Power sold White Bay Power Station to Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority.
*Ironically, Light rail is being re-established in the inner western suburbs so the demand for power is now increasing!

Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
Painting the White Bay Power Station
"White Bay Power Station" 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold

10.To travel with great speed or force...

 I'm putting the final flourishes on my gigantic painting of the White Bay Power Station. It's been a race against time.

Even though my next solo exhibition "May close without warning" doesn't start until the 11th October, I had to get some strong images together for the advertising in the "Look" Magazine, and think about suitable images for the invitation. Most of my paintings of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops are just too dark to photograph well. So the pressure was on me to finish this work in time!

14.Human power-the rate of work performed by a human...

Many invitations show the artist posing self-consciously in front of works in progress in their pristine white studio. But I have no studio as such. Although, on the other hand as I work "en plein air" you could say that the whole world is my studio. 

So just for a change, I thought I'd include a couple of images of my works in progress on location.

 The security guard took a few photos of me in action completing this canvas, and my gallery dealer liked this one so much that we might even include it on the invitation to the opening!

I wear an Akubra, not a beret while I paint.

The Akubra hat is a necessity and not an artistic affectation. It shades my face from the sun, keeps my hair out of my eyes and is waterproof enough to keep the rain off in bad weather.

6.Physical strength...
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
Putting the final details on the "White Bay Power Station"
"White Bay Power Station" 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm

This canvas is 102 x 152cm - extremely large for a work painted outdoors on location. The early stages could be painted fairly quickly, but nuances such as light falling on the windows are made more difficult by the slightest puff of wind making the canvas beat like a drum.
I fossicked for bricks to weight down my easel so I wouldn't have to chase it all over the yard.

3.Possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done...
The worst moment was painting the thin diagonal lines reaching from the top of the chimney stacks to the roof. I had been dreading putting these in, as they had to be painted in a single confident unbroken stroke, cutting across the sky. The sky was still wet, so I couldn't use a ruler.
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
Using my car as a windbreak so I can add some details with a fine brush.
"White Bay Power Station" 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold

4.The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively...

 I tried to use my car as a windbreak, with only partial success. As you can see from the photo above, I adjusted the French box easel until the canvas was almost horizontal, but it was still too risky to paint these fragile lines. If I made the slightest mistake, I would have had to scrape down the entire sky and start again.

8.Forcefulness; Effectiveness
I waited a long time for a still, calm day before I had the confidence to tackle this task. Then a final decisive sweep of the brush and the canvas was finished.

2.The rate of doing work...

Meanwhile I completed a few small studies of details of the Power Station, partly to help me to understand the complexities of light and form, and partly to fill in time while waiting for the wind to drop so that I could finish the large canvas.
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
Works in progress

Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
Painting the "White Bay Power Station stacks" 
 2011 oil on board 51.5 x 25cm
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
"White Bay Power Station stacks" 2011
 oil on board 51.5 x 25.5cm
Available for sale

Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
"White Bay Power Station coal loader" 
2011 oil on board  35 x 28cm
Available for sale
Industrial Heritage and urban decay - Plein air oil painting of the White Bay Power Station by artist Jane Bennett
The completed canvas "White Bay Power Station" 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold


Monday 1 August 2011

A total lack of Art and Coffee on the Rocks Part 2 - A Bad Aroma


 I started to paint a quick oil sketch of a group of Indian dancers and was spotted by Channel 9, who were looking desperately for something to film before the festival opened. They dragged me off to a spot in front of the Opera House where they were going to film the weather report. Not a spot I would have chosen as it was looking directly into the rising sun, but I started a tiny study of Sydney Harbour, as they mentioned the Rocks Pop Up Project and 47 George st. I thought I had done a good job of being an ambassador for the Arts and the project.
There were few people passing by. Most were clustered around the tents several hundred metres away. I decided to finish my little Harbour study and then roam around in search of festival highlights to paint.
The study worked out quite well and a couple of people walking past made admiring comments. Then a group of people who had been friends of mine since my days in Pyrmont, stopped to chat.
All hell broke loose.


Society of Hatred For the Arts

I was bullied and harassed by the mindless goons operating as SHFA Rangers.
I was told not to paint in public.
I explained who I was and that I was the official Artist in Residence appointed to do exactly what I was doing and was not engaged in selling my work or harassing the public. Only people who stopped to admire my work and expressly asked for more information were spoken to.
One of the Rangers demanded that I put my wet oil paintings inside my trolley luggage so that they weren't 'on display'. They were not 'on display'- they were drying next to each other on my easel. Oil paint stays wet for up to a week, especially in winter, however sunny.
My 3 little paintings were scarcely blocking anyone's view as the largest canvas was only 30 x 15cm.
These two orange vested morons made a flurry of phone calls to their head nazi, who was apparently sitting in the penthouse suite of the Museum of Contemporary Art getting his jollies by watching the whole debacle unfold on his video screen. As a gigantic grudging concession I would be permitted to finish the little harbour view, providing I didn't let anyone watch me paint and that I packed the 2 wet oil paintings underneath my belongings in my bag.
Which of course smeared them, ruining the day's work.
They so didn't care.
I was told I had a studio at 47 George Street and I was to get back to my studio and stay inside during the festival.
I had an expensive French box easel and trolley luggage with things I had been planning to put in the studio later. Because of the festival my car was parked a long distance away. I was exhausted from coping with their haranguing and wanted to leave.
Could they stand by my easel to make sure nobody stole it?
No.
They were happy to stand there bullying me for a couple of hours, but they didn't have enough time to safeguard my belongings.
Creating art is a much more serious and dangerous crime than robbery.
I had no idea.
Obviously I'm a danger to society and have to be stopped at all costs.

They'd never seen a plein air artist before, and wanted to make sure that they never saw one again.
They won't.

Maximum points for irony - we were standing in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art. As I returned from the long trek to my car to pick up as much as I could from my former 'studio' I noted a busker occupying my spot, completely ignored by the rangers. He was singing. And very badly, too.
The rangers argued that the busker had a licence.
But then so did I.
"Artist in Residence", remember? 
Why appoint an Artist in Residence and forbid them to paint?
 I complained to the Rocks Marketing Authority Manager as soon as I reached the studio.
She said that she probably wasn't going to be of much use. She more than lived up to that expectation. While offering to "talk" to her troop of standover men, she could give no guarantee that the same thing wouldn't happen the next time I picked up a paintbrush outside the 'safety' of the studio.
She said something that made my blood run cold.
"People were in the Rocks to see the coffee not to see art"
Well that puts the nail in the coffin for so-called "Creative Sydney" doesn't it!
This attitude explains why Sydney doesn't have the cultural ambience of Melbourne or Adelaide, never mind aspiring to the standards of Paris or Rome.
As an Australian Artist I am used to being treated like dirt - it's part of the job. Imagine an Australian sportsperson being treated with this amount of disrespect. See, you can't, can you.
But what utterly disgusts me is the shabby pretence of "fostering creativity" while doing the utmost to stifle it.

As far as I can tell, these are the 10 rules of the City of Sydney:

Don't be an artist.
Don't be creative.
Don't produce anything. ( And if you do - don't let anyone watch you. Ever.)
Don't be eccentric.
Don't be sensitive.
Don't be unusual.
Don't be interesting.
Don't be unique.
Don't think for yourself.
Don't stand out.

Just don't.

Monday 30 May 2011

Eveleigh Windows - (Very) Stained Glass Windows Part 3

Hidden Beauty
E85 Eveleigh Windows 2011 oil on canvas 51x 41cm

Sold : $2,400

Enquiries

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Irons in the fire - Part 6 -Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick

A Tale of 2 Prizes
Just returned to Australia from my exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, to find a little box of acrylics, sketch books and other art paraphernalia that had been sitting on my doorstep unnoticed.
As well as winning actual money as 2nd prize at the Royal Easter Show, some kind sponsor had thrown in some art equipment as well.
I could easily go through all the paint in those little tubes in a single afternoon, but all donations gratefully received!
oil painting of blacksmith, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
E83 'Blacksmith forging '2011 
ink pastel acrylic on paper 9 x 10cm  
WINNER 2nd Prize for Miniature Painting 
2011 Royal Easter Show
Sold 
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

When you add the cash amount to the cost of the box of paints, this tiny little painting actually won more than double its price in prize money ! I wish I could keep that standard up for every painting!

oil painting of blacksmith, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
'The Blacksmith' 2011
oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com




















However, my other equally worthy contenders for prizes got nowhere. 
A thorn in my side has been the so-called "Plein Air Painting" Prize. I doubt that I will ever bother entering again.
As I am one of the very few genuine plein air painters in existence, who doesn't just paint small studies but lugs giant canvases around wharves, demolition sites and foundries, to the bemusement of hundreds of surprised wharfies, blacksmiths and demolition contractors,  I consider this art prize a farce. The trouble is that after decades of painting swiftly in adverse weather conditions in front of workmen and passers-by, my works just don't have that clumsy slapped together look demanded by the organizers. 
My works rarely have much 'studio intervention' other than simple repair work ( bird dirt, insect,twig and dust removal ; and removal of grubby fingerprints from carrying them awkwardly) They have been painted quickly, but as these might well be the only records of a particular event or even an entire location, they have to look as though time were not an issue, or the lack of time an excuse for bad painting. In other words, they have to compete on their merits. 
Ironically, the same works entered in the Plein Air Painting Prize (not the ones shown here by the way) had won art prizes elsewhere in which the painting process was not an issue.
Now I've had good works chucked out of countless other art prizes and just laughed about it - I take a philosophical attitude.
The funniest occasion was when my rather nice watercolour of the Spit Bridge got thrown out of the Royal Easter show, and, wanting to get it out of my lounge room, I put it in the Wynne Prize for Landscape for a bit of a laugh. It promptly won the Trustee's Prize for Watercolour and the Pring Prize  - the joke was that if it hadn't been chucked out of the Royal Easter Show I would never have thought of entering the Wynne.
In all my years of winning prizes and selling paintings at the Royal Easter Show, getting my painting thrown out was the biggest favour they ever did me!
So why does this particular art prize stick in my throat? Because it is a Plein Air Art Prize.
I have never had a work hung in this particular art prize where I am quite possibly one of its few genuine practitioners. And I probably never will.
I have been told that my works don't have the 'look' of having been painted 'en plein air'. Yet they are. To be regarded as 'credible' my paintings should be messier, more thickly painted, more indecisive,dumber, clumsier, more unfinished, with less ambitious perspective and simpler composition and design. I have paid the penalty for my painting skill.
The works should be smaller as well- this art prize has the strange size restriction of being geared towards vertical work, with a generous vertical height limit of 2m but a horizontal one of only 85cm.
Because "nobody paints large canvases 'en plein air' !"
The predictable result is a bias towards a vertical grid of little studies. Fine, but one of the valid aspects of landscape painting has always been the "sublime"- the feeling of being overawed and overwhelmed, even physically threatened by the landscape. In this art prize there is no room for the heroic.
In short you mustn't challenge their preconceptions of what a plein air painting is. And I have no use for work that toes the line and does the 'expected'. I have been punished for my temperament as well as my skill in painting.
 I've seen artists (usually amateurs) paint outdoors in parks, gardens or the rural environment. But in all my decades of painting I have never seen anyone except Tom Carment tackle the urban environment we all mostly actually live in, 'en plein air'. I can't help feeling that artists  indulge in escapism by going off for expensive weekend retreats to the bush for 'inspiration' instead of noticing the hidden beauty closer to home.
So today I will take my unloved and unbelieved paintings  from the art gallery loading dock, back to the wharf, construction site or foundry where they were created. At least the truck-drivers, wharfies and security guards who watched me paint them, know how to appreciate them.
And they certainly do.
These works have now all been sold.
oil painting of blacksmith, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
 E53 The Blacksmith Bay 1 Eveleigh
2011 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
SOLD
Enquiries  : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

Thursday 24 March 2011

UPtown Festival 2011

The 30th Pyrmont Ultimo Festival
Saturday 19th March 2011
The industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett exhibiting her Pyrmont paintings at the 2011 Pyrmont Festival
The Pyrmont- Ultimo UPtown Festival 2011
Photo is courtesy of Jeffrey Mellefont,
Australian National Maritime Museum.

Quarry Green is a charming little park between Quarry St and Bulwara Road behind Harris St Ultimo. Its most famous landmarks are the church and tne pub, which lie close to the border between Pyrmont and Ultimo.
The festival began modestly thirty years ago, when it was started by two enterprising local residents, Debra Berryman and Olga Reader, as a simple get-together to unite the small local community. Since then, year by year, the UPTown Festival has witnessed the Ultimo Pyrmont precinct’s remarkable re-birth and transformation from a quiet, post-industrial area in the early 1980’s, with a population of under 2000, to today’s thriving business, media and education centre, with a dynamic, multi-ethnic community of around 20,000.
I had displayed some of my many paintings of Pyrmont and Ultimo in previous UPtown festivals, but always inside the church hall which made them difficult to see. This time I was given a large tent and a prime position outside the local community's favourite watering hole, the Lord Wolseley. This delightful old pub, at the northern end of Quarry Green on Bulwara Road, is one of the narrowest in Sydney, but makes up for that in 'character'. Its interior boasts a bullet hole left in the pub mirror by Neddy Smith, who had rather shakily aimed at the bartender during the 1980's gangland wars. Those were the days!
Despite the heavy rain the festival drew a large crowd-the organizers estimated that there were over 4,000 people attending. I caught up with lots of people I hadn't seen for years and met many new residents who were interested to see what their suburb used to look like.The tent sheltered my 40 paintings and 2 large drawings, attached with cable ties to the 14 easels I had again borrowed from my long suffering mate John from the Australian Society of Marine Artists. Lots of people helped me lug the easels from the Mustard Seed Centre where they were stored.
The paintings in this photo are some of my more recent Pyrmont artworks. In the foreground is the "Carpentaria and the James Craig" from just outside Wharf 7, and above it are 2 views of Jacksons Landing from Glebe Island Wharf and a painting of Pyrmont from the East Darling Harbour Wharves.

For more information see My Pyrmont page in this blog

Related posts
Looking over the overlooked-Urban decay in Pyrmont
To the Point
Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free
Pyrmont Paintings past and present
Paintings of Pink pubs - Painting the Jolly Frog Part 2 

Not the Writers Festival- Exhibition of Pyrmont Paintings by Jane Bennett at 2013 Pyrmont Festival
We like sheep - Waite and Bull Building 137 Pyrmont Street
Marine art exhibition at Australian National Maritime Museum
Pyrmont Sandstone - The Lizards of Oz