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

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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 Sydney Ports Corporation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sydney Ports Corporation. Show all posts

Sunday 30 August 2020

Heavy Lifting

Plein air oil painting of crane lifting a boat at the Hungry Mile, East Darling harbour Wharves painted by marine artist Jane Bennett
DH143 Preparing for a boat lift
2007 oil on canvas 92 x 122cm

Available for sale

 










 
 
 
 
Today's painting on my easel on the deck gallery was a large canvas painted during my stint as "Artist in Residence" at the East Darling Harbour Wharves. Very few container ships were docked at the East Darling Harbour Wharves - in its last 5 years of operations most went to Botany, which handled container or "boxes" only. 
The East Darling Harbour Wharves specialized in break bulk cargo - items that can’t be transported by container, sometimes resulting in a diverse & rather incongruous payload. Sand, salt, gypsum was bagged or piled in gleaming unstable mounds on the wharf. Rolls of steel, pipes & timber lengths for construction were stacked in piles inside the sheds. Cars, vans, trucks, forklifts, excavators  & agricultural machinery were driven down the ramps of the Ro-ros at breakneck speed as though the wharfies were auditioning for yet another remake of ‘the Italian Job’ or the ‘Fast & the Furious”, & then parked in neat rows until they were lifted or driven onto B-doubles. 
A selection of excavators, mining or agricultural machinery and the ubiquitous rolls of steel coils would lie for weeks inside the sheds.  Luxurious 'hot-water' boats, most of which were larger than my house and definitely cost more, were nonchalantly lifted off the ships & dangled from the cranes like giant earrings. Some of these boats were so enormous that they looked almost capable of carrying the ship that brought them. There were even more oddball items such as helicopters, train carriages, yachts & caravans. And one unforgettable afternoon  a couple of horses broke free while being unloaded from their box and had to be caught and restabled, turning the wharf into a wild west show.
Plein air oil painting of crane lifting a boat at the Hungry Mile, East Darling harbour Wharves painted by marine artist Jane Bennett
DH143 Preparing for a boat lift
2007 oil on canvas 92 x 122cm

Available for sale














 
 
 
 
This canvas was painted from the centre of the area between the Patrick offices in Shed 5, looking north towards Shed 4, with the western end of Balmain in the background. The huge white shed of White Bay can be seen in the background in the gap between the crane & the boat that has just been unloaded.
The giant vermilion crane, “L3” is bathed in clear morning light, poised with its pink spreader aloft in mid air. It had just placed the boats on wooden structures known as “Nafis” so they could be hooked up to one of the 2 rather elderly forklifts to be positioned on the wharf until they were transferred onto a B-double truck & delivered to a marina. I asked whether the term ‘Nafi’ was an abbreviation or a brand name, or anything to do with the naval term 'Naafi" but nobody on the wharf seemed to know the origin of the word. Like many other items on the wharf, the Nafis were brightly painted, mostly in primary colours, but here there is an orange one on the left hand side & a green one on the left.  There were random clusters of them stacked neatly one on top of the other all over the wharf. 
The unnaturalistic colours of the machinery added to the pervasive feeling of living inside a Jeffrey Smart painting. The maintenance workers, who serviced the cranes & forklifts, always wore bright orange overalls, of exactly the same hue as the witches hats. I know that none of it was arranged deliberately to help me compose my painting, but there was a pleasing compositional triangle of the orange –clothed workman striding purposefully away from the orange sled, with the orange witches hat in the foreground. The spreader directly above his head also has a matching orange “A” shaped crane attachment, although to strike a discordant note, its framework is a teeth-jarring shade of pink. The reds, pinks & oranges of the machinery stand out strongly against the large expanse of clear pale blue sky & matching strip of sea are interrupted by the sap green of the trees of Balmain in the background. Oddly, the completed painting has the poise and compositional balance of Jeffrey Smart and Edward Hopper, although painted under infinitely more trying circumstances than a neat white studio. Although large & complex, this was a pure plein air painting- totally painted outdoors, no photography, no tricks. Just the culmination of a lifetime of observation.
It was an eye-opening experience to be able to see first-hand, how much work & how many people have to be involved in providing goods that we take for granted.
This was painted in September 2007, in the last few weeks of East Darling Harbour Wharves activity as an operational wharf. The following week, all three shore cranes were repainted in the yellow & white colours of AT & T livery, prior to being moved onto a barge & towed to their new homes in Webb Dock, Melbourne & Port Kembla.
Related 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.

Tuesday 23 June 2020

The Last of the Hungry Mile- Harbour Control Tower from East Darling Harbour Wharves

Today's canvas was painted from inside Wharf 4 in East Darling Harbour Wharves during the its last few weeks as a working port.
Plein air oil painting of Harbour Control Tower from East Darling Harbour Wharves (now Barangaroo) painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm
FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE














The once bustling wharf became a ghost town, as the cargo-loading infrastructure was dismantled, the 3 shore cranes were loaded onto barges for Port Kembla or Webb Dock, and anything remaining was put into storage or into a skip bin.
The wharf has now closed forever and Sydney’s traditional role as a working harbour is nearly over.
For Sydney Harbour to be stripped of its original character and purpose, was almost unthinkable.
Abandoned places have a haunting beauty.
They are points of temporary stasis in the turning world of urban change.
It was eerily silent; waiting for the demolition to start and the genesis of Barangaroo to begin.
Barangaroo is about hubris - a grand feat of ambitious central planning in search of a purpose. The vaunted economic rebirth of the area has like so much else been sent into hibernation by the Covid crisis.

Plein air oil painting of Harbour Control Tower from East Darling Harbour Wharves (now Barangaroo) painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm
FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE
























The columns of light poles point towards the Harbour Control Tower, which was one of the last vestiges of the working port in the area, and was demolished a few years later.
This Port Operations and Communication Centre was a milestone in the history and operation of the Port of Sydney. The construction of the tower gave oversight of maritime operations over all the Port of Sydney for the first time.
Nestling underneath, on the escarpment is the historic Hotel Palisade, once a rough waterside early opener, now gentrified for the expected inflow of tourists to Barangaroo on the west and the revamped Walsh Bay Wharves to the north-east.

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

Sunday 28 April 2013

Painting 'Millers Point' from Moore's Wharf

This small canvas is of Miller's Point - the boat, that is - not its namesake suburb up the hill!
Plein air oil painting of Port Authority workboat 'Millers Point' being lifted by crane next to Moore's Wharf painted by marine Artist Jane Bennett
MW14 'Millers Point'
2013 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Available for sale

There's quite a motley collection of work vessels big and small, berthed at the Sydney Port Corporation's Port Jackson headquarters at Moore’s Wharf.
Plein air oil painting of Port Authority workboat 'Millers Point' being lifted by crane next to Moore's Wharf painted by marine Artist Jane Bennett
MW14 'Millers Point'
2013 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Available for sale
As I arrived, "Millers Point", Sydney Port Corporation’s new emergency response launch, was being lifted from the water onto piles of huge tyres on the wharf, alongside the crane.
Usually it's in the water at its customary berth in front of Moore's Wharf, but it was waiting to get its twin 225hp Honda outboard motors serviced.
Plein air oil painting of Port Authority workboat 'Millers Point' being lifted by crane next to Moore's Wharf painted by marine Artist Jane Bennett
MW14 'Millers Point'
2013 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Available for sale
I hadn't painted this new addition to Sydney Port Corporation's fleet before, & I decided to capture the drama of the boat lift in a small canvas.

I must admit that I was still mourning the loss of the historic old warhorse, the 'Poolya', which had been broken up at Glebe Island Wharf, in early February 2013, not long before.
"Millers Point" was designed in Western Australia by Global Marine and built by Axiom Alloys of Mt Druitt.
"Millers Point", is 9.3m in length with a beam of 3.35m and a draft of 0.55m. It has a speed that can exceed 40kn. It has a trihedral hull & is fitted with a 6hp stand-alone fire pump.
Plein air oil painting of Port Authority workboat 'Millers Point' being lifted by crane next to Moore's Wharf painted by marine Artist Jane Bennett
MW14 'Millers Point'
2013 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Available for sale

Related Posts 

Painting the 'Poolya'

Painting the 'Shirley Smith' at Moore's Wharf

Sunday 24 March 2013

Boat at Goat

The Shirley Smith is now on the slipway on the western side of Goat Island.
The last few canvases that I have completed at Moore's Wharf have  Goat Island as their main subject.
The eastern side of the Island which faces Moore's Wharf, features the old amenities block, which was once the site of the iconic TV series "Water Rats", and the heritage cottages which once housed the headquarters of the Harbour Master.
The western side of Goat Island still has an operating shipyard, one of the last vestiges of Sydney's rich heritage as a working harbour.
The only hint of this on the eastern side is the barely visible tip of the crane poking out from the treetops.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
Starting a small oil sketch of the
"Shirley Smith" on the Goat Island slipway, 
oil on canvas 13 x 18cm
Enquiries about this painting




















Several years ago I managed to paint on Goat Island, but it was difficult to arrange access there, and even more importantly, back.
It's a long swim to shore.
I have longed to return to paint on Goat Island, and last week I finally got my wish.
I hitched a ride on the "Mann's Point", courtesy of Sydney Ports Corporation, and painted 2 tiny oil sketches.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
Starting a small oil sketch of the
"Shirley Smith" on the Goat Island slipway
oil on canvas 13 x 18cm




















I had a great vantage point as I was sitting on a jetty directly opposite.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
My first small oil sketch of the "Shirley Smith" on the Goat Island slipway, oil on canvas 13 x 18cm 
Next time, I must take some larger canvases, as I would like to include the crane.
I might not get the opportunity to return until the end of this week as there have been so many commitments and distractions.
My solo exhibition continues until the end of the month. Once the paintings had been hung, and the official opening was over,  I  had to organize a panel discussion and an artist's talk.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
Another view of my small oil sketch of the
"Shirley Smith" on the Goat Island slipway,
oil on canvas 13 x 18cm
Enquiries about this painting




















I have left one of my French box easels on Goat Island, to make it easier for me to return with larger canvases.
The people at the shipyard have been wonderful. They are so friendly and easygoing, and have so much passion for the unique maritime heritage of Goat Island.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
Starting my second small oil sketch of the
"Shirley Smith" on the Goat Island slipway,
oil on canvas 15 x 31cm




















Painting on the island is an inspiring experience, but the trouble is that if I have left something behind, I have to do without until next time.
It can be awkward to take equipment there, and even more awkward to take it back.
I tried to take the bare minimum of stuff in my trolley luggage, but even so I needed help to lug my easel from the boat to the ramp.
plein air oil painting of Sydney Ports tug 'Shirley Smith' on slipway of Goat Island by artist Jane Bennett
My 2nd small oil sketch of the "Shirley Smith"
on the Goat Island slipway 
oil on canvas 15 x 31cm
My return journey to Moore's Wharf was with the apprentice boat repairers,  in a much smaller boat.
They were keen to get home, so it was a fast and bumpy Harbour cruise. 
It was made even more exciting by having to juggle two small wet canvases and make sure that they didn't fall in the water.