Scar Tissue

Exploring disused manufacturing can sometimes be a bit depressing – all that decay, all those jobs that no longer exist, all that busy industry that has gone.
I have been painting in the increasingly empty Large Erecting Shop of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops, as they are being slowly stripped of all but the barest essentials,
leaving desolate floors and abandoned walkways.
Echos follow your every move, mimicking and daring you to make your presence known.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm

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Painting is less documentary, more subjective,definitely slower and more labour intensive than photography.

However these qualities can be assets as well.

The painter has to select one image showing a definitive moment and yet implying others, to reveal layers of meaning that reward further viewing.

A bit like an onion. And sometimes it can make you want to cry.

I value the quality of authenticity, of being a witness.
This practice of painting on site produces a more genuinely felt memory of my experience and an understanding of the location’s properties and mood, providing me with a truer record of the colour palette than photography.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
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With the removal of so many items, I focus intensely on what remains. Instead of panoramas of the interior, I am working on a series of close ups of details I have previously overlooked, attempting to preserve what is left of the once chaotic jumble of relics of over 100 years of railway history.

The paint itself can give a feeling of the volume and presence of the scene being painted.
Texture such as rust, stains or water damage can be scraped back with a palette knife or engraved into the surface. The term for this is “sgraffito”.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
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The colours and textures, crumbling render, faded pigments, verdigris, scrapes and scratches – the scar tissue that stand witness to moments in time and history, may be lost in the rush towards the future.

More paintings of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Ghost Train

This is how the light gets in

Ghost in the machine

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within

City larrikins, past and present

I took advantage an almost deserted CBD during a public holiday, to record some of the buildings in Castlereagh St that will soon be demolished to make way for new metro stations around Martin Place.

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

 
I took a panoramic canvas to try to squeeze in as much of the streetscape as possible.
On this canvas I've managed to get the lovely Art Deco building on the north corner of Hunter and Castlereagh St, 55 Hunter St, 10 - 12 Castlereagh st and a doorway of the lovely old Commonwealth Bank building that now houses Macquarie Bank.

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

 
Ironically there is a keystone in the Macquarie Bank building that was placed there by the controversial NSW premier Jack Lang, who once attempted to nationalize the banks and cancel Australia's war debts to the UK. I can't help wondering what Jack Lang would have thought of Macquarie Bank!

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

Several skateboarders and parkour experts can just be seen in the distance, grouped on the stairs of the soon to be demolished 17 storey building at 55 Hunter street.
Unfortunately I had to break the news to them that their favourite ramps and railings at 55 Hunter St where they practise their jumps will soon be demolished. They will make the most of their unofficial skate park until it is knocked down next month, and entertained me with over 2 hours of death defying jumps, twists and somersaults.

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

There seems to be something about this street corner that attracts larrikins, past and present.
A trio of slightly less acrobatic larrikins of the past, also used this unassuming corner of the CBD to rattle the cage of conservative society over 50 years ago.
A famous copper sculpture by Tom Bass, bites into the Hunter street facade of this office block. It had been commissioned by P&O as a wall fountain  in 1961, and was intended to be seen as a purely abstract design. 
However, when this work was unveiled, its indirect resemblance to a Parisian pissoir and its position opposite the French Airline Office, led to a notorious lampoon in the 6th edition of Oz magazine. The editors of Oz magazine, Richard Neville, Richard Walsh and Martin Sharp, were charged, tried and sentenced to jail with hard labour for "obscenity and encouraging public urination", although the defendants subsequently appealed against the sentences, which were revoked.

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

Tom Bass wasn't offended by the Oz magazine send up of his sculpture, and actually appeared in the trial for the defendants.

Painting 'Panorama of Castlereagh st, from Hunter st to Martin Place' 2017 oil on canvas 31 x 103cm

Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

 
Through the Chifley arcade are a couple of other buildings due for demolition, 5-7 Elizabeth street. 7 Elizabeth street is an elegant art-deco apartment block, recently vacated by its reluctant ex-residents.

This is how the light gets in

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
“Anthem,” by Leonard Cohen from his 1992 album The Future.

Starting a small square canvas 46 x 46cm

of two windows and a door in the

Large Erecting Shop, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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These are healing words to someone who often struggles under the unbearable weight of perfectionism. It is more than a confrontation with the strange beauty of broken things.

It is a powerful message of hope in dark times.There is a crack in everything whether a physical object such as a piece of machinery, or even a state of mind.

But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where we can find the transcendence we need to interpret painful events in a wider context.

Literally, nothing, and nobody is perfect.That should not be a source of despair or frustration.

Imperfection is a sign of life.

Starting a small square canvas 46 x 46cm

of two windows and a door in the

Large Erecting Shop, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Enquiries
If the purpose of a window is to be able to let an observer see outside, or to illuminate the interior, the windows of the Large Erecting Shop of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops fail spectacularly.

'2 windows and a door in the Large Erecting Shop,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops'

2017 oil on canvas 46 x 46cm

Enquiries
However, the evocative effects created by sunlight filtering through the grid of rusty bars rival the stained glass of Chartres Cathedral.

'2 windows and a door in the Large Erecting Shop,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops'

2017 oil on canvas 46 x 46cm

Enquiries
Every pane is a unique mix of translucency and texture.

Starting a 91 x 61cm canvas

of the strange green window.

" 2 windows and a door, Large Erecting Shop,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops' 2017

oil on canvas 46 x 46cm 

Enquiries
Their ethereal opalescent quality is not caused by expensive designer frosting, but by more than a century's buildup of deposits of dirt, pigeon droppings, steam and diesel fumes.

Starting a 91 x 61cm canvas

of the strange green window.

Enquiries
And there are cracks galore.

Starting a 91 x 61cm canvas

of the strange green window.

Enquiries
Other imperfections abound.

Half finished 91 x 61cm canvas

of the strange green window.

'2 windows and a door in the

Large Erecting Shop,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops'

2017 oil on canvas 46 x 46cm"

Enquiries
Ghost signs warning of the dangers of long lost machinery alternate with boarded over panes in abstract patterns that would make Mondriaan's head spin.

Half finished 91 x 61cm canvas of the strange green window.
Enquiries
Doors are abruptly cut into them, apparently at random.

Half finished 91 x 61cm canvas of the strange green window.
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com
An inexplicably green pane of glass casts an eerie phosphorescent glow.

"Window with pane of green glass"

2017 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm

Enquiries
When the Large Erecting Shop is redeveloped, the windows will be replaced with uncracked clear panes to match the rest of the gentrified ATP.
No rogue panes of eldritch green glass will startle the viewer with their otherworldly light. They will be made safe, watertight, functional, identical and boring.
The chaotic jumble of heritage machinery in the Large Erecting Shop will be culled and tamed. There will be nothing accidental, mysterious or inexplicable.
There will soon be no cracks left to let the light in.
More paintings of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Related Posts

Ghost Train

Ghost in the machine

Scar Tissue

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within

Eaten by robots

My old studio, the Harbour Control Tower

MP55 Harbour Control Tower from Observatory Hill

2016 oil on paper 9.5 x 9.5cm

Available

 
Another one of my old studios has bitten the dust.

I feel like I can jinx a place just by painting it.

I have been observing the start of the demolition of the Port Operations Harbour Tower in Millers Point.

Love it or loathe it, the Tower was one of the last vestiges of Barangaroo's former life as a working port.
The heart and soul of the former 'Hungry Mile' has been ripped out and replaced with machines.
Literally.

MP56 Harbour Control Tower from Argyle st

2016 oil on paper 9.5 x 9.5cm

Available 

Once the 'mushroom cap' at the top of the Tower was fully removed, the concrete stem below it was eaten away by robotic excavators from the top down.

Just another portent of the world envisioned by Isaac Asimov in his book “I, Robot. Technology asserts its robotic grip whether you like it or not.

Progress is so impersonal.

Eaten by robots- what a way to go!
So very Dr Who. "Exterminate, exterminate!"

MP54 Harbour Control Tower

from the Hotel Palisade 2016-7

oil on canvas 122 x 153cm
Available

Meanwhile paint peels off surrounding terraces awaiting their inevitable gentrification. The Hotel Palisade opposite has completed its journey from seedy early opening waterfront dive to expensive hipster hub, while retaining some of the trappings of its colourful past.

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Barangaroo - Red Square, the Drill Rig and a little Archaeology

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Tie a yellow ribbon

The Last of the Hungry Mile

My exhibition at the Sydney Open