Tower of Power- Drawings of the White Bay Power Station

White Bay, an often overlooked part of Sydney's industrial and maritime heritage will soon be radically overhauled.

'White Bay Power Station' 2012
ink gouache on paper 30 x 21cm
FINALIST : 2012 KEDUMBA DRAWING PRIZE

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I have painted many of its current and former landmarks, including the Unilever site, the White Bay Power Station and the notorious White Bay Hotel, (which was 'mysteriously' burnt down) ever since they were all operational in the late 70s - early 80s.

'Chimneys of the White Bay Power Station 2' 2012
ink gouache on paper 30 x 21cm

FINALIST : 2012 KEDUMBA DRAWING PRIZE

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This is a group of 4 small ink wash and gouache drawings on paper, which I have decided to enter in the 2012 Kedumba Invitational Drawing Prize.

'Coal Loader White Bay Power Station' 2012
ink gouache on paper 30 x 21cm
FINALIST : 2012 KEDUMBA DRAWING PRIZE

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It seems a strange distortion of scale to create such small works in response to such a slumbering beast as the gigantic Power Station. Usually I paint an enormous canvas to try to capture its heroic proportions.

However there are so many exquisite details which can get lost in a larger composition that I was glad of the opportunity to focus on them. Every inch of this rusting monster is worthy of a painting, so that it is difficult to choose.

'Coal Loader and Chimney White Bay Power Station'
 2012 ink gouache on paper 30 x 21cm
FINALIST : 2012 KEDUMBA DRAWING PRIZE

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And I will have to choose quickly.

Now the White Bay Transit Shed has been partially demolished and the site re-developed as the controversial new Cruise ship terminal.

Glebe Island wharf, once used for offloading cars, has been eerily empty since the departure of ex-HMAS Adelaide to its watery grave off North Avoca in 2011.

A temporary exhibition venue will soon be built on this space to replace the Darling Harbour complex while it is being refurbished.

A road will soon be built on the empty site where the "Great Gatsby" had been filmed last year, to link all these new developments to civilization.

"White Bay Power Station after rain"
2012 oil on canvas 183 x 112cm

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PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY

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So I feel that the days of the White Bay Power Station as a hulking urban ghost are numbered. 

One day the sleeping giant will wake.... 

To what sort of future? 
Update

Chris Johnson of the much loathed Urban Taskforce has described the White Bay Power Station as a 'lazy asset' in a story in the Inner West Courier Skyscraper one of the plans for Glebe Island from Urban Taskforce  16 Oct 2012  written by Oliver Murray. 

Funny, I've always thought that about the Urban Taskforce.

Apparently the two main options on the table to decrease its laziness will be to plonk a 60 storey tower on the end of the peninsula, or 8 residential blocks ranging between 20 - 30 storeys high. 
All throughout 2013 men have been working on the roof replacing the rusty corrugated iron, so hopefully this means that the building will be adapted and reused rather than demolished. 
However I have seen sham repairs before. The CWG building in the AGL Gasworks Mortlake site  (now Breakfast Point) had an elaborate network of bright red bollards propping up the interior, looking like a bizarre set of cat whiskers. This led onlookers to believe that its facade would be retained - right up until its demolition.
So excuse my cynicism.

Also see my page in this blog :

White Bay Hotel/White Bay Power Station Paintings

Related posts

Inside Out

Power House

Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2

Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station Part 1

Steady Rest

Rust Bucket

Keep your eyes on the prize (and your finger off the trigger)

3 "Highly Commended" Awards in the past 3 days!

One off winning $1,250.

One off winning another $1,250.

And one off winning $5,000.
Don't know whether I should accept congratulations or commiserations.
I hadn't known until I collected my paintings today that I had been awarded two "High Commendations" for my entries in the Camden Art Prize.
I had been awarded the "Highly Commended" for  "The Art of Navigation". This is a memento mori painting of antique navigation instruments, and pays tribute to the famous 18th century navigator La Perouse.

"The Art of Navigation" oil on canvas 75 x 100cm

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Yet another "Highly Commended" in the "Works on Paper" Section for a moody charcoal and ink interior, "The Turbine Hall Of the White Bay Power Station"

"The Turbine Hall Of the White Bay Power Station"
2011 charcoal, pastel and ink on paper 75 x 100cm

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The "Blacksmiths, Eveleigh" ranked first of the five "High Commendations" awarded in the Open Section of the Hunters Hill Art prize, making it the runner-up.

"The Blacksmiths, Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 
oil on canvas 91 x 122cm

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I had known that it had received at least a "Commended", as its title was in bold print on the website, but I had no idea that it was the runner up until the end of the presentation night when I read the judges comments :
"Gripping subject matter - the painterly shadows take on a rainbow hue from the furnace which is the source of all light and tension in this finely rendered genre painting"

There was a lot more tension, although a bit more heat than light, the other day in the Hunters Hill Club, the venue where my painting is hanging.
This year, paintings in the Hunters Hill Art Prize are hung at 3 historic venues - the  Hunters Hill Town Hall, the Congregational Church and the Hunters Hill Club - all within a short walking distance from each other.
My 2 largest paintings are displayed in the Town Hall, my entry in the 9 x 5" section is in the church, and the painting of the Blacksmiths, which was the runner up, is hung on the wall of the Club.
 It's a great idea, as people who don't usually go to art exhibitions will get an opportunity to check out the art.
However there were a couple of sightseers that we would all have been happy to live without.
There was a terrifying incident at the Hunters Hill Club on the night before the art prize opening, which I was told about at the opening by John Booth, the editor of the local paper "The Weekly Times".
At 9.30pm, two robbers armed with an axe and a rifle smashed their way through a locked door.
As they approached the bar, three of the club's employees  managed to lock themselves in a room to escape.
 Fortunately the robbers weren't able to get into the room after them.  Just as fortunately no-one else was injured, although one of the robbers had pushed a patron off his bar stool before jumping the bar. However as they fled, one of the robbers can be seen threatening patrons with a long rifle as he forces them to hand over their belongings.
I'm relieved that these thugs were apparently neither art fans nor art critics.
No paintings on display in the Club were damaged or stolen, and none will return to their creators  with bullet holes as extra decoration.
 And I'm even more relieved that this brazen robbery didn't occur on the opening night, which was attended by hundreds of people.

Related articles
Axe wielding thieves rob club on Sydney's Lower north shore

Daily Telegraph 11 May 12
Video of the armed robbery at the Hunters Hill Club
"Armed robbery at club in Hunters Hill" North Shore Times Crime  11 May 12  by Torin Chen

 Related posts

"The Navigator and the King"
The Art of Navigation
New still life paintings of navigation instruments
Inside Out
Power
Time for Safety
The fire within
Eveleigh - Industrial Heritage Artist at Work
Strike while the iron is hot
All fired up
The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)

"May close without warning" Solo exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery Part 2 "All that is solid melts into air"

More Paintings and Drawings from my solo exhibition
"May close without warning"
at the Frances Keevil Gallery
11 - 30 OCTOBER 2011
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

'May Close without warning...'

 My paintings and drawings are accompanied by some excerpts from "The Meanings of Deindustrialization" by Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, Saint Louis University 2003  Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History. Paper 33

Painting 'en plein air'  "White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
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"The point of departure for any discussion of deindustrialization must be respect

for the despair and betrayal felt by workers as their mines, factories,
and mills were padlocked, abandoned, turned into artsy shopping spaces, or even dynamited."

"White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
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"While economists and business leaders often speak in neutral, even hopeful, terms such as "restructuring," "downsizing" or "creative destruction," metaphors of defeat and subjugation are more appropriate for the workers who banked on good-paying industrial jobs for the livelihoods of their families and their communities..."

Painting 'en plein air' 

"White Bay Power Station Chimney stacks"

2011 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm

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"In fact, the first public use of the term "deindustrialization" identified the Allies' policy toward Germany just after World War II: an active process of victors stripping a vanquished nation of its industrial power."

"White Bay Power Station Coal Loader" 
2011 oil on board 35 x 28cm

"The dramatic evidence of industrial change and capital flight that litters our landscapes does, however, present a basic collective problem: How do we account for the destruction of an economic order that seemed so rooted and pervasive?"

"Industrial Cathedral"
charcoal drawing on paper 131 x 131 cm 

This drawing was a finalist in the 1998 Dobell Prize for Drawing (Art Gallery of N.S.W.) ; Finalist in 1998 Blake Prize for Religious Art ; Winner of 1998 Hunter's Hill Open Art Prize

"In the end, what may be most troubling about these ruined industrial landscapes is not that they refer to some once stable era, but rather that they remind us of the ephemeral quality of the world we take for granted."

"Grabber, Muncher, Ripper"
2010 oil on canvas 31 x 31 cm

Outside the derelict wharf, the demolition team waited patiently for all the preliminary drilling and checks to be completed before they got the green light to start.

The parrot beaks of the excavation attachments and their scarred and scaly skin reminded me of the animated re-creations of Tyrannosaurus rex.

These particular attachments are actually really called "Munchers"! The names of other attachments eg. "Buckets", "Grabbers", "Rippers" and "Pulverizers" are also reminiscent of comic books and children's toys.

"If Karl Marx was right in saying "all that is solid melts into air," then the industrial culture forged in the furnace of fixed capital investment was itself a temporary condition. What millions of working men and women might have experienced as solid, dependable, decently waged work really only lasted for a brief moment in the history of capitalism."

"Dave and Lok forging at 'Wrought Artworks', Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm
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"Because capital was fixed in giant machines bolted to the floors of brick-and-mortar factories, the industrial culture that emerged in various places at various moments had an aura of permanence, durability, and heritage....."

Panorama drawn from the top of the silos of the 
"Mungo Scott Flour Mills, Summer Hill" 
2010 charcoal, ink and gouache on paper 118 x 118cm

The Operations of these flour mills have been transferred to Picton, on the periphery of the south western suburbs, about 2 years ago. Now this mill will be redeveloped into an apartment complex similar to other former mills in Dulwich Hill and Newtown.

"Forging chisels (Drawing down), 
'Wrought Artworks' Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 
2011 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm

Enquiries about similar paintings

"Working people saw in the decline of this industrial order the dissolution of their society, culture, and way of life, and the betrayal of their trust by those whose decisions shaped their fate."

Related posts

Power
"May close without warning" Solo Exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery
Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2
White Bay Power Station : Inside Out
Power House
"May close without warning" Part 3- Meet the artist
Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station