"Dalgety Terrace Millers Point"
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm Collection : Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW Enquiries about similar paintings
The Harbour Control Tower looms ominously over the row of ramshackle terraces on the sandstone block wall of Dalgety Road.
Some of the houses sport protest banners :"Millers Point not 4 sale" "Our community is worth more than money"
Fortunately some of the banners were still there long enough for me to paint them, however, a few weeks afterwards the Housing NSW Millers Point Relocation Team had torn them down.
Housing NSW's Relocation Officers and their security and "cleansing" teams have been removing banners and photos of residents throughout Millers Point. The banners on the Garrison Church Rectory and on St Brigid's Church were removed in January 2015.
"Dalgety Terrace Millers Point"
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm Collection : Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW Enquiries about similar paintings
Luckily I finished painting this canvas just before the roadwork started.
I was set up between 2 of the hideous new apartments built several years ago to replace a set of old Maritime Services Board warehouses.  |
"Dalgety Terrace Millers Point"
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm Collection : Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW Enquiries about similar paintings
To add insult to injury,there is now a serious attempt to remove even the name "Millers Point" from the suburb- see Don't erase Millers Point Facebook Page
This canvas, which I exhibited in my solo exhibition "Under the Hammer" Frances Keevil Gallery 2014, was recently acquired for the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
My canvases are banners that can never be torn down.
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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
- Jane Bennett Artist
- 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 architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Tuesday 17 February 2015
Banners, Millers Point
Friday 28 November 2014
There goes the neighbourhood
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MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
At first sight, it looks peaceful. Charming enough to put on the cover of a chocolate box.
Does it remind you of the Impressionists perhaps? Pissaro, even early Monet?
To the right is a charming row of Federation houses in dappled shade.
But there are undercurrents. All is not well.
There is a sharp sudden drop to the street below.
Behind a camouflaging line of trees there is turmoil. Machinery lurks in the background; inexplicable concrete structures and mounds of debris peek through.
A road carves through the centre to the horizon.
It divides the past from the future.
Welcome to Barangaroo.
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| MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
Millers Point always had a raffish edge. It was a tough little quarter, the oldest suburb in Australia, and coincidentally its earliest slum. For over 200 years it was the heart of maritime Sydney, as ships loaded wheat, wool and coal at the Fingerwharves that fringed the Harbour from Woolloomooloo to Blackwattle Bay.
Now it is undergoing a painful and cataclysmic metamorphosis. Every vestige of its colourful past will be swept away.
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| MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
Including the people.
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| The artist painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
Social cleansing is not a new policy dating from our own era of economic rationalism. It’s been here before.
In January 1900, the bubonic plague first broke out in Sydney, carried by rats from the ships. Millers Point was popularly considered to be a festering slum, inhabited by social undesirables living in ignorance poverty and filth. This was all the excuse the government needed for a massive program of slum clearance that went well beyond simple health precautions.
In January 1900, the bubonic plague first broke out in Sydney, carried by rats from the ships. Millers Point was popularly considered to be a festering slum, inhabited by social undesirables living in ignorance poverty and filth. This was all the excuse the government needed for a massive program of slum clearance that went well beyond simple health precautions.
%2Bcrop.jpg "Plein air oil painting by Industrial Heritage Artist Jane Bennett of Millers Point Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st") |
| Painting MP9 'Millers Point. Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
This attitude permitted those with political or commercial interests at heart to promote resumption of property in the name of morality and hygiene. To “purge” the city of perceived social ills, whole city blocks were cordoned off, many houses and even whole streets were demolished.The entire waterfront was put in lockdown until it resembled a quarantined war-zone.
The idea of a “tabula rasa” – a clean sheet, a blank canvas, has always been very seductive to planners. Development through decay, dereliction then destruction is the familiar theme running through Sydney’s history.
Throughout the plague and clearances, yellow ribbons were tied to the doors of houses with infected people inside, or on the doors of houses due for demolition, to mark danger.
The idea of a “tabula rasa” – a clean sheet, a blank canvas, has always been very seductive to planners. Development through decay, dereliction then destruction is the familiar theme running through Sydney’s history.
Throughout the plague and clearances, yellow ribbons were tied to the doors of houses with infected people inside, or on the doors of houses due for demolition, to mark danger.
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| Painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
One hundred years later, the area was yet again in danger. It only escaped complete demolition due to the heated campaign by activists, residents and the Green Bans imposed by Jack Mundey and the NSW Builders' Labourers Federation.
As the maritime industry declined and was forced to the periphery of Sydney, the wharves were given a makeover to become upmarket apartments and an entertainment precinct. In 1985 ownership of public housing was removed from the Maritime Services Board and taken over by the Department of Housing. Yet a tiny enclave of the old working-class Sydney community still exists.
The phrase “spirit of place” is often overused, but how else can you describe it? People whose families had worked on the wharves, in some cases over 5 generations, are still clinging there precariously, in the houses they had lived in all their lives.
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| Sunset, Millers Point. MP9 'Millers Point Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 with another half finished panorama of the same size of High Street and Barangaroo on my easel. Enquiries |
There has been extraordinary pressure exerted to gentrify the area. A six-star hotel and high-rollers casino are planned for Barangaroo, only a stone’s throw away.
The first auctions of 293 public housing properties at Millers Point and The Rocks have begun. Ironically this will even include the Sirius apartment complex, which had been specifically built to house residents displaced during the previous development push.
There is no guarantee the proceeds will be quarantined from general revenue to build new public housing in the area or even close to the CBD.
Millers Point residents will have to go within two years, coincidentally when Barangaroo will open.
The first auctions of 293 public housing properties at Millers Point and The Rocks have begun. Ironically this will even include the Sirius apartment complex, which had been specifically built to house residents displaced during the previous development push.
There is no guarantee the proceeds will be quarantined from general revenue to build new public housing in the area or even close to the CBD.
Millers Point residents will have to go within two years, coincidentally when Barangaroo will open.
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| Close up detail of gate with yellow ribbon on house in High Street MP9 'Millers Point Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
The yellow ribbons are back, tied to the doors and gates, to warn of an old danger in a new form.
Plus ça change, plus ça meme chose.
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| Painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st' oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 Enquiries |
If you look carefully, their paintings are full of clues. Those elegant Parisian boulevardes painted by Caillebotte, are wounds inflicted on the city when small laneways were bulldozed, and the residents evicted.
Montmarte, too steep for easy access, escaped this homogenization, and was still full of crooked narrow lanes and cheap housing. Many fled there, including some impoverished artists who later became the world famous icons of Impressionist art.
Their paintings don’t look so “chocolate box” now, do they?
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Close up detail showing the partly obscured "Barangaroo" sign MP9 'Millers Point Barangaroo and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014 |
But the letters are partially obscured; all you can make out is “a n g ...r”.
Hidden anger? With a sugar coating.
Related articles
Monday 4 August 2014
Fish and chips, painting in Windsor
Painting a Thompson Square panorama
in Windsor
Painting Windsor Seafoods and its neighbour Gloria Jean's Coffee from just outside the Macquarie Arms Hotel.
My favourite fast food shop in Windsor!
I've decided to paint a series of studies of individual shops.
Windsor Seafoods at 74 George St Windsor is in the AC Stearn Building.built in 1907.
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| TSW11 'George st from Thompson Square ' 2013 oil on canvas 31 x 153cm Enquiries |
I usually painted the trees, river and the graceful Georgian architecture on either side of the park. I found that I really enjoyed painting Windsor's George st shopping strip or "Eat St".
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| Starting to paint a small canvas 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee' 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm Enquiries |
The name "A. C. Stearn" and date is helpfully written in decorative maroon lettering on the top floor of the facade of this impressive heritage building.
One of the legendary attractions of Windsor Seafoods is their macaw.
One of the legendary attractions of Windsor Seafoods is their macaw.
However "Snappa" is only in residence 3 or 4 days a week, and by the lack of raucous screeching, this must have been one of "Snappa"'s days off.
The original balcony of this handsome two story building was unfortunately removed in the 1950's.
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| Starting to paint a small canvas 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee ' 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm Enquiries |
However it was later restored to its former grandeur in 1975, and then was updated again in 1988, in preparation for the Bicentenary celebrations.
There is a little laneway between Gloria Jean's Coffee and Windsor Seafoods which is topped by a cream wall that I initially thought was a walkway from the top floor of one building to another. It isn't, or if it is, you'd need the skills of a tightrope walker.
On closer inspection it's just a few rows of bricks strangely attaching the two buildings, with no real function. It could be a leftover from a previously existing building, possibly even the Sir John Young Hotel which was built in 1865, then demolished in 1915 following a fire in 1913.
Gloria Jean's Coffee is one of 3 little eateries in what apparently used to be a single building.
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| Halfway through painting a small canvas 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee ' 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm Enquiries |
On closer inspection it's just a few rows of bricks strangely attaching the two buildings, with no real function. It could be a leftover from a previously existing building, possibly even the Sir John Young Hotel which was built in 1865, then demolished in 1915 following a fire in 1913.
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| Halfway through painting a small canvas 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee ' 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm Enquiries |
The other 2 are "Grill on George" and Stir Crazy" but aren't visible in these pictures.
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| Starting to paint TSW18 'Windsor Seafoods' 2014 oil on canvas 36 x 28cm Enquiries |
I finished lunch and my first painting, then started another.
This time I used the same size canvas, but turned it around to paint a vertical study of Windsor Seafoods.
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| TSW17 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee ' 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm Enquiries |
One
of the charming eccentricities of the architecture is that the levels
of the crenellations of the roofline of the 2 outer buildings are lower
than that of the centre building.
All
3 buildings have blue and cream striped awnings, which with the white
canvas marquee, fluttering yellow and orange flags and blue and cream
umbrellas of Windsor Seafoods, give the whole streetscape a jaunty air.
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| TSW18 'Windsor Seafoods' 2014 oil on canvas 36 x 28cm Enquiries |
Sunday 6 April 2014
Another one bites the dust
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Starting a large panorama on Sunday 30th March about 10am
"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo from High Street, Millers Point"
2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
Enquiries about this painting :
I have spent most of the past week painting a large panoramic canvas to show the Harbour Control Tower from High Street in Millers Point.
On the far left hand side is a view of the Barangaroo construction site, with giant chunks of recently excavated yellowblock sandstone forming a pseudo-naturalistic cove.
On the far right hand side, the workers cottages of High Street stare down disapprovingly onto their brash new neighbour.
In the centre of the picture is the last bastion of the Hungry Mile, the mushroom topped column of the Harbour Control Tower.
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.JPG "plein air oil painting of heritage terraces in Millers Point by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist") |
Monday 31st March about 1pm
"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo from High Street, Millers Point"
2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
Enquiries about this painting :
The Harbour Tower was also jokingly known as ''the Pill" because it "controlled all the berths" in the harbour. According to the National Trust, it should be conserved and reused as it symbolizes more than 200 years of shipping in Sydney.
However, this is an unlikely fate, as the Barangaroo Delivery Authority then bought the concrete, steel and glass structure from Sydney Ports for $2.6 million.
Despite its unsurpassed 360 degree harbour views, the Harbour Control Tower quite obviously doesn't fit into their vision for Barangaroo, so its days are numbered.
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.JPG "plein air oil painting of heritage terraces in Millers Point by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist") |
Tuesday 1st April about 11am
"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo from High Street, Millers Point" 2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
Enquiries about this painting :
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Sydney Ports once manned it 24/7, but it has not been operational since April 11th 2011, when vessel control services for Sydney Harbour finally moved to Port Botany.
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Wednesday 2nd April about 11am
"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo from High Street, Millers Point" 2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
Enquiries about this painting :
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The tower opened in 1974 to give Harbour Control the best possible views of the harbour to ensure safe passage for thousands of ships each year. The architectural drawings and plans for its construction used to be hung in the foyer of the amenities level, just in front of the lift, until some light fingered wharfie pinched them.
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'Evening Harbour Control Tower from Moore's Wharf' 2013 oil on canvas 178 x 122cm |
This is my huge canvas painted from my Moore's Wharf studio, showing the last time that the gorgeous sandstone escarpment was completely visible.
The park will slope from its soi disant naturalistic 1788 coastline up to Clyne Reserve and Merriman street. Obviously the Tower will get short shrift. It is an emblem of another era and different values.
It looks as though Precision Demolition will be getting more work!
I last caught their act at Port Kembla, where they lived up to their name, neatly and precisely dropping the Port Kembla Copper Stack onto the grounds of Port Kembla Copper. Previously I had met them during the saga of the sinking of ex-HMAS Adelaide.
I am surprised, and more than a little concerned, that as the demolition of the Harbour Control Tower was virtually a foregone conclusion, that it wasn't demolished before construction of the headland was so far advanced. However neatly they drop it, it would make a bit of a dent in the painstakingly arranged faux natural headland. Unless they are planning to leave the pieces there as a giant water feature or a Brutalist concrete novelty sundial in the centre of the park.
It would certainly be a conversation piece.
Or perhaps the charming terraces of Merriman Street are also superfluous to their requirements?
There's no accounting for taste.
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'The Shipping News - Last view of interior of Harbour Control Tower ' 2011 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm
Enquiries about this painting : |
I had been "Artist in Residence" in the Harbour Control Tower by Sydney Ports Corporation for nearly a decade.
This is the final view of the interior of the top floor. The whiteboard has a list of the very last shipping movements on April the last operational day of the Harbour Control Tower.
The clock has stopped at 10.44am, Tuesday 24th May, and has been left that way.
After the last operational use of the Tower, maintenance staff had to still have access to be able to remove furniture, cables and other equipment. If I arrived early enough, I would be allowed to tag along and do a bit more painting.
My very last visit was just before its eventual demolition.
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