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 painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Thursday 25 June 2020

Barangaroo - tabula rasa

Today's painting on the deck is a panorama painted on the East Darling Harbour Wharves. It includes 2 of my former studios - the Harbour Control Tower and Moore's Wharf.
The now demolished Harbour Control Tower dominates the empty wharf. A row of pink terraces perch on top of the golden sandstone escarpment
while the Sydney Harbour Bridge can be glimpsed behind Moore's Wharf, a handsome heritage sandstone building housing the Sydney Ports Corporation.
The cute little federation building on the left is a Federation era sewage pumping station. It has since been cleaned up and relocated.
plein air oil painting of  the former East Darling Harbour Wharves about to be redeveloped into  Barangaroo Headland Park with the Harbour Tower painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
BAR60 'Barangaroo north -
The Harbour Tower,
escarpment and Moore's Wharf 2'
2010 oil on canvas 38 x 76cm
















This canvas was painted just after the wharves had been cleared of all their maritime infrastructure, and just before work began on the construction of the Barangaroo Headland Park that replaced it.
It shows a place in a state of limbo.
I've included a couple of photos of this and a couple of other canvases as works in progress, to show some of the process involved in their creation.
I had to lug a french box easel, paint, brushes, medium, canvases, a couple of tables, a chair, and my lunch, packed inside trolley luggage. After doing this for several decades, I've become quite fit and strong!
plein air oil painting of  the former East Darling Harbour Wharves about to be redeveloped into  Barangaroo Headland Park with the Harbour Tower painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Plein air oil painting behind the barrier
on the East Darling Harbour Wharves
Showing this canvas as a work in progress
with my trolley luggage, table, chair, french box easel,
paints, brushes and other equipment.

























Barangaroo is a paradox.
The area now known as Barangaroo was off limits to the public for over a hundred years but was the central core of Sydney's economy. Necessary, yet ignored ; in full view yet strangely invisible.
Now it is centre stage, hotly debated and fought over, yet still unknown to the vast majority of Sydney.
Once a despised slum - now prime waterfront. Only the fashion has changed...
plein air oil painting of  the former East Darling Harbour Wharves about to be redeveloped into  Barangaroo Headland Park with the Harbour Tower painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
BAR60 'Barangaroo north -
The Harbour Tower,
escarpment and Moore's Wharf 2'
2010 oil on canvas 38 x 76cm
















It had a complex. fascinating multi-layered history but has been treated as though it is tabula rasa - a blank canvas for architects to impose their will upon.
Nearly 200 years of maritime heritage disappeared with barely a token gesture to its previous existence.

Sunday 2 December 2012

The bad twin of Pyrmont Street

I've spent a couple of days last week painting some small canvases of Pyrmont workers' cottages from the Bond store over the road at 12 Pyrmont Street.
This pair of semi-detached 1860s workers cottages might have started life as identical twins, but have suffered radically different fates over the years.
Plein air painting of semi-detached workers cottages in Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Starting my painting 'A tale of two cottages'
2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
They remind me of an old classic movie on daytime TV I watched many years ago. I can't remember its name, or much about the plot or who was in it. All I can recall is that it was about a pair of beautiful twin sisters - one was the epitome of niceness but the other one was evil and came to a sticky and well deserved end.
Plein air painting of semi-detached workers cottages in Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Plein air painting 'A tale of two cottages'
2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
While the “good twin”, number 27 Pyrmont Street, has been lovingly renovated several times over the last 30 years, the “bad twin”, number 29 Pyrmont Street, is yet another property owned by the same couple who own Darling Island Bond and Free Store and the Terminus Hotel, and is in a similar state of neglect as the rest of their portfolio.
The “good twin” has an exquisitely applied paint job in the latest fashionable neutral shades. The “bad twin” once boasted a front wall and stoop of glorious Pyrmont yellowblock sandstone, but this had unfortunately been covered with a cheap and nasty coat of plaster and bright blue paint which has faded erratically.
Plein air painting of semi-detached workers cottages in Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
'A tale of two cottages' 2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
In the early 1980s, Number 27 was occupied by a couple of eccentric graphic designers. They started the ambitious but ill-fated "Pyrmont Passport" as a protest about the over-development of the Pyrmont Peninsula and the construction of the Casino. After they lost this fight, one of them moved to live in the Birdsville pub to get away from the madness of inner city politics
I haven't yet met the current occupants of Number 27, but the elegant brass plate next to the door is inscribed "Rhubarb" in a funky yet tasteful font. At the moment it seems that it is compulsory for anyone who lives or works in Pyrmont has to be an architect, a web designer or run a restaurant, preferably all three simultaneously. As "Rhubarb" is a type of vegetable, it would be far too literal a name for a restaurant, my money is on it being full of architects or web designers.
Last century, the residents of Pyrmont tended to fit into a few well defined categories. The CSR employees clustered around the western end of John Street, wharfies and ex-wharfies around Point, eastern Bowman and northern Harris Streets, the Darling Island shunters and other railway employees around Murray, Bunn and southern Harris Street and people working around the Fishmarkets on the western side of Bowman street and around Wattle Street. There were few restaurants, but many pubs, all rough as guts. And the "media, cultural and entertainment hub" was provided by the topless barmaids at the Terminus, and the parties thrown by the squatters of Scott and Point Streets.

Plein air painting of semi-detached workers cottages in Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
'A tale of two cottages' 2
2012 oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm
Enquiries about similar paintings
While Number 27 has a neatly rendered step and a pretty little white picket fence,in contrast the facade of number 29 has shown a distressing tendency to fall face down in the gutter like Lindsay Lohan.
Recently an emergency repair of an unflattering bright red brick retaining wall had to be applied to stop the rest of the cottage sliding down the hill.
However, the "bad twin" still has good bones and is possibly not beyond redemption.
I sold my small canvas so I'm starting another plein air painting of the same cottages from a slightly different angle
'A tale of two cottages' 2
2012 oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm
Enquiries about similar paintings
Every time I paint in Pyrmont Street I fantasize about what could be done by a sympathetic owner, some TLC and vast quantities of time and money......
I finished the smaller canvas only just in time for it to dry for the opening of the Xmas exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery last night!
It had barely been hung before it was sold and taken away by the happy owner. They hadn't even run out of wine and cheese at the opening.
So I'll be back soon on the corner of John and Pyrmont streets to finish a slightly larger canvas.
The Xmas exhibition continues until 31st December 2012
FRANCES KEEVIL GALLERY,
  mob: 0411 821550
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

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

Saturday 3 March 2012

The fire within

"What is accomplished by fire is alchemy, whether in the furnace or kitchen stove."

Paracelsus
Fire is still a source of mystery and magic. It is a transforming element as well as a symbol of destruction. The discovery that fire could smelt metal was an immense technical advance in the evolution of humanity.
The smiths had at their command a material that could be cast, moulded, or hammered into a tool, an ornament, a vessel for cooking or storing food or drink, or a weapon.

Oil painting of blacksmith forging in the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Unfinished painting of "Chris, the blacksmith
of Wrought Artworks, forging chisels"
2011-12 oil painting on canvas 183 x 122cm




















I started this large (183 x 122cm) canvas of the blacksmith Chris Sulis quenching a chisel late last year. This is how the canvas looked when I displayed it at the recent ATP Open Day on Saturday 25th February 2012.
I was interrupted in the progress of this large canvas by having to prepare for 3 major solo exhibitions in less than 4 months. Most artists hold only 1 solo show every 2 years so this totally disrupted the progress of my painting. 
I hate displaying unfinished paintings, but I did so at the ATP Open Day as I thought that it would give the audience a useful insight into the painting process. They would see me starting a variety of small canvases, compare these cryptic squiggles to the half finished ones, and then be able to see  finished works in the exhibition in Bay 12. One man thought that I was using one of the small canvases as a palette, until an image of Guido hammering  started to appear from the cloud of brushstrokes!
Oil painting of blacksmith forging in the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
A close up detail of the unfinished painting of Chris.
He is quenching one of a seemingly endless pile of chisels,
 which have to be reforged and sharpened weekly.
On Monday I decided it was about time to complete the large canvas. It was certainly worth finishing, but it was a large, complex and ambitious work, full of perspective and lighting problems. I hadn't been able to spend much time painting large scale works this year due to my punishing exhibition schedule, so I felt a bit rusty. And the blacksmiths can't stop to model, however much they might like to - they are very busy!
Oil painting of blacksmith forging in the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Unfinished painting of "Chris,
the blacksmith of Wrought Artworks, forging chisels"
2011-12 oil painting on canvas 183 x 122cm

Enquiries  

This shows my large painting as it was on Tuesday mid-morning.
Chris is working the Massey steam hammer in the background. He will stay in this tense crouch for about 30 seconds - and this will be the longest that he will stay still all day!
Every Tuesday, a pile of 100 - 150 chisels arrive to be reforged, sharpened and picked up the next Tuesday. Some of them have been bent into "J" shaped giant fishhooks and need a combination of heating, hammering on both the traditional anvil and the heritage Massey air hammer and even angle grinding. They are described as "chisels","points" or "tapping bars" - I don't know which of these terms is correct (if any!). Apparently these points are attached to jackhammers. One of the blacksmiths estimated that during his apprenticeship he would have reforged about 1,000 of these in a week.
They have mixed feelings about this task - it seems repetitive and neverending but they love using the old -fashioned machinery.
I have similar feelings - it is so exciting to paint this, but it is incredibly noisy and afterwards I feel drained and exhausted.
The pounding of the Massey hammer can be heard even through earmuffs, and there is a small yet fierce furnace heating the points that makes this an uncomfortable place to work on such a humid day.

Oil painting of blacksmith forging in the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Unfinished painting of
"Chris, the blacksmith of
Wrought Artworks, forging chisels"
2011-12 oil painting on canvas 183 x 122cm


















This is how my painting looked after the Tuesday forging session. My next post will show further progress.
I'm grateful to Julie from "Sydney Eye" who has now posted several articles featuring my series of paintings of Wrought Artworks. The most recent are :

En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)

Thursday 1 March 2012

The slow return from the fire

On the ATP Open Day I had to be in 3 places at once.
I was to exhibit my paintings of Eveleigh in the Exhibition Hall and simultaneously paint while the blacksmiths of Wrought Artworks gave their forging demonstrations.
I would be displaying 38 paintings on 20 easels in the Exhibition Hall.This included 2 works on paper framed under glass, that were so large that they could only just be crammed into my station wagon. Some of the paintings were from my home in the north-western suburbs and some at the Frances Keevil Gallery in Double Bay.
In addition to this, I was exhibiting another 8 paintings of the blacksmiths in Bay 1/2, as well as some large half finished canvases. I also needed to bring my French box easel, palette and paint so that I could give the onlookers an insight into the process of painting from life.
The 20 easels required a separate journey, as I have learnt the hard way that trying to transport paintings and easels in the one trip always ends in tears.   Unfortunately all of the deliveries and all the setting up of the exhibition had to be on Friday, the day before, so this resulted in 5 trips.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
With my team of helpers,
Ron, Fay and Tony!
On the Open Day I was helped by the directors of the Frances Keevil Gallery, Frances Keevil and Lynn Westacott, who both came along to look after the exhibition and stayed to pack up and deliver works back to the gallery.
I also received a great deal of help from a most unexpected source. A couple of weeks before, I had been invited to talk about my work at the inner-western Sydney branch of Rotary. Despite my total cluelessness about Powerpoint ( I managed to disconnect my laptop, but I fortunately had brought some canvases with me in case I messed up the technology), I must have done something right. Fay Thurlow, Ron Bottrill and Tony Bastow from Rotary all turned up, full of enthusiasm and energy.
I was so grateful for this as it freed me to be able to paint as well as exhibit my work.
I think the relief and gratitude showed in my face as I painted!
Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
This shows me starting a medium size canvas of the
blacksmiths hand forging and hammering. 
Chris Sulis, dreadlocks flying, is a whirl of action in the background.


The blacksmith in the background is Chris Sulis, who is also the subject of the very large half finished canvas displayed next to me in the photo below.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
Art and life. 
I'm starting a canvas of Chris hand forging,
next to my giant canvas portrait of
Chris forging chisels on the Massey steam hammer.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
No makeup, no sleep for 2 days, no breakfast and totally knackered!
But finally all the hard work of preparation is over
and I can relax and get back to painting.
 On my easel is the start of my painting of one of the furnaces,
while on my table is a quick study of the master blacksmith,
Guido Gouvernor, hammering.



I quickly started the largest spare canvas that I had. As well as giving the onlookers something to see, it helps just to break the ice. It's important for me to start quickly - to get something on the canvas even if I later paint out every mark I make. If I sit there deliberating too long I can get paralysed with fear that I will make the wrong brushstroke and make a fool of myself in public. There is no time for fear or second thoughts on a day like this.
I have to make every moment count. I make cryptic scribbly marks in paint on a dozen small canvases at my feet, as I try to commit the nonchalant balletic grace of the blacksmiths to memory. They are swift and economical with their movements, as only men who are waving around large pieces of red hot metal in a confined space can be.
 Their gestures sometimes bring to mind echoes of half forgotten classical poses from art history. The tense crouch of quenching a chisel in a trough is briefly transformed into the stance of a Roman about to spear a dying Gaul.
Although their movements are swift, once I pick up the rhythm and sequence of their routine I can isolate gestures that will make interesting paintings
The blacksmiths rarely fire their furnaces now. Most of their work involves welding rather than traditional blacksmithing techniques. This is as much a treat for them as it is for their audience.
There were 2 locations to paint on the Open Day. At the northern end of the Blacksmith's enclosure, Guido and Chris had lit a furnace for a more or less continuous demonstration of hand forging and hammering techniques. About every 2 hours they would open the gates to let people in for the spectacular steam hammer forging sessions. I would then carefully balance my brushes on my palette and scamper past the barriers just in time to set up. I spent all day running from one site to the other in a sort of mad artistic relay race. 
I find painting in these circumstances exhilarating, as much sport as art.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
This was painted during the first steam hammer forging demonstration. 
I have just started a small canvas of the master blacksmith,
Guido Gouvernor with Chris Sulis at the Massey steam hammer.
Guido (wearing a festive pair of red earmuffs) is in the foreground.
Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
This shows the same canvas
after the next forging demonstration.
I have painted in the face and arms of Chris,
who is holding the object being forged.

In the afternoon, I visited my exhibition in Bay 12, and was very impressed with the way that it had been arranged by my friends.

exhibition of paintings by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
Some visitors in front of my painting of the 
"BHP Goods Yard, Newcastle" 1998.


exhibition of paintings by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
A young train buff taking photos
of my paintings of the lamp trikes
of the Paint Shop of North Eveleigh.

One of the features of the Open Day was the inaugural Eveleigh Film Festival.
The photo below shows two of the heroes of my favourite railway film "Darling Island Shunters".
Darling Island  was ending its days a a working goods yard, just as I was starting to be serious about my project of painting Pyrmont.
I'm so glad that I had included a tiny little painting of the Darling Island Goods Yard which I had painted in the 1980s, and a book of photos of my other paintings of Pyrmont. 
They also used to ride the ancient lamp trikes that I had painted in the canvases behind them.
exhibition of paintings by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist at the Australian Technology Park Open Day, Eveleigh
"Darling Island Shunters"

   I have just read Julie's wonderful post about the Open Day Singing the body electric.The Walt Whitman poem chosen to accompany her photos has always been one of my favourite pieces of writing. It manages to put into words the feelings that I have when I paint far better than I ever could.

Friday 17 February 2012

To a Good Home- St Vincent's in the Art of Darlinghurst update

A few of the paintings in my exhibition at St Vincent's have found good homes. In fact, the best homes I could have imagined!
A couple of days ago a man walked past the Frances Keevil Gallery and saw the printed article, that I had cut out of the Sydney Morning Herald, on the door. He then went to the hospital to see the exhibition as he recognized the street and houses from the tiny photo of my painting. His parents had apparently lived in one of the houses. 

I'm not sure whether it was 372 Victoria Street, which later housed Diabetes Australia, or 374 Victoria Street, which later became the R.M.O. He then purchased these 2 paintings as treasured memories of his family history.

"Victoria st terraces Nos 372 - 374
- the Diabetes Centre and the RMO"
2009 oil on canvas 51 x 41cm
SOLD Enquiries about similar paintings


"Victoria st terraces - Diabetes Australia"
2009 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings

'Victoria Street mural and the clinic'
2010 oil on canvas 38 x 76cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings
 

Now I have heard that the purchaser of "Victoria Street mural and the clinic" intends to bequeath it to the hospital, where it will stay in the office as "an important reminder of our past".
Often I never get to discover the reasons why someone buys one of my paintings. I love to find their story about the place that has such meaning for them.
When I painted these works, I had received so many lovely comments from the patients and staff of the terraces and clinic, who had loved the World Aids Day mural and the surrounding buildings.
It means a lot to an artist for their artwork to be appreciated by someone with a personal connection to the subject matter. 

What I do really matters to me, rather than being some intellectual painterly exercise.
Often I have been asked "why do I paint the particular subjects that I do?". I struggle to find the exact words to describe the feelings that I have, as I am a much better painter than I am a writer, but the fate of these paintings goes right to the core of my reasons.
The first two paintings have filled in a missing chapter of someone's lost personal history. The painting of the mural and the clinic will now hang forever as a symbol of hope and recovery.

Related posts


St Vincent's- In the Art of Darlinghurst 


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

To see another photo from the opening night by Julie of "Sydney Eye" see "Craggy"(sydney-eye.blogspot.com.au).


Strike while the iron is hot

 
Pyrmont paintings past and present- My Exhibition in the Australian National Maritime Museum

 
'From the Hungry Mile to Barangaroo'

 
Storm warning, Goat Island

 
Eveleigh Community Heritage Day

 
Another one bites the dust