White Bay Power Station : Inside Out

Work in progress on the easel
"Inside the Boiler House of White Bay Power Station"
2011 oil on board 51 x 25cm
Enquiries about paintings of White Bay Power Station
As 'Artist in Residence', I'm painting the chimney stacks from inside the Boiler House of the White Bay Power Station.
It's so dark inside that it is difficult to take photos and I've never really learned how to use the flash properly.

Work in progress on the easel
"Inside the Boiler House of White Bay Power Station"
2011 oil on board 51 x 25cm
Enquiries about paintings of White Bay Power Station
Painting inside the Boiler House is a strange experience.
I balanced the exterior space revealed by the open rusting door with the muted light coming through the window.
Under the window, sheets of rusting corrugated iron are also letting in some light as they are disintegrating at the edges and pierced with holes.
The parallel vertical lines of the window sheeting contrast with the horizontal pattern of the iron. The severe geometry is interrupted by a mad little squiggle of barbed wire perches on top of the corrugated iron sheeting with a baroque flourish.

"Inside the Boiler House of White Bay Power Station"
2011 oil on board 51 x 25cm
Enquiries about paintings of White Bay Power Station
The White Bay Power Station has had many strange uses in its time.
After its official closure in the early 1980s, it had a strange afterlife as the site of mysterious scientific experiments for several years. There was a joint venture between the CSIRO and the University of Sydney and possibly other entities. I don't know exactly what it was all about, but it involved the use of thegiant turbines in the now defunct Turbine Hall. 3 out of 4 of them have since been removed, hopefully after the experiments came to a satisfactory conclusion.
This vast cavernous room is now about absence rather than presence.

WBPS82 'Interior of Boiler House White Bay Power Station'
2016 ink charcoal gouache on paper 106 x 121cm
Enquiries about paintings of White Bay Power Station
It does, however, rejoice in the world's largest fishbone fern which reaches through the infinite void towards the floor from the parrot beak of one of the huge coal hoppers.
It's a bit hard to tell which way up this huge drawing should be. It's sort of reverse vertigo - I feel dizzy from looking up, rather than down!
In later years the interior has frequently been used as a location for films, especially science fiction - the 'Matrix' especially springs to mind.
I know exactly what the future is going to look like - the interior of the White Bay Power Station!
The real future of the White Bay Power Station itself is as yet unknown. It is in limbo, waiting for a purpose, in search of another afterlife.


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