Royal Edward Victualling Yards (REVY), Darling Island, Pyrmont

Today's painting on the deck shows a small panorama of Sydney Harbour with a cargo ship berthed at the East Darling Harbour Wharves in the background. The strange looking building in the centre surrounded by piles of timber is the REVY C building on Darling Island. I painted it in the early 1990s from Ways Terrace.

 

 

 

P8'REVY C from Ways Terrace'

1992 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm

Available for sale

On Darling Island, nothing is now left of the timber and shipbuilding yards. Today the water’s edge bristles with new apartment blocks gazing over sheltered waters. Yet beneath the silvery surface lies a hidden history.

The Royal Edward Victualling Yard, ( REVY A,B & C), was built between 1890 and 1911, by the revered Government architect Walter Liberty Vernon in the Federation Free style.

They were some of the last working buildings on the Pyrmont waterfront and had rivettingly odd architecture. Revy A and B  consisted of a 5 storey and a 6 storey pair of large red brick warehouses set at right angles to each other and linked by a square central  water reservoir tower. They were built in a flamboyant neo-Gothic style which reminded me irresistibly of the Bargello in Florence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P8'REVY C from Ways Terrace'
1992 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm

Available for sale

Revy C is a narrow, skinny, rather ungainly eight-storey, red brick Federation Warehouse, and still the tallest structure on Darling Island.  It had a rusticated ashlar bluestone ground floor, and a riveted truss jib crane facing Jones Bay Wharf. Its 4 large lift towers on the roof always reminded me of the crenellations on top of medieval castles.
Early fire fighting relied on steam pumped water pressure which could only reach up to a maximum of 2 storeys. So the set of external steel fire stairs at either end were a very practical solution to this problem, even though I used to curse them for being a perspective nightmare to paint.

 

 

P12B REVY 3 from Jones Bay Wharf with 'Nederburg'
1990 oil on canvas 25 x 51 cm
SOLD
Enquiries about other paintings of Darling Island
Revy's original purpose became obsolete due to the increasing size of cargo ships and the introduction of container shipping.
The painting above shows the 'Nederburg' one of the last cargo ships docking at the Pier 19/20/21 (now known as Jones Bay Wharf) opposite Revy C.
During the 1980s REVY C was remodelled for the Defence Science and Technology Organization.















P12 REVY from Jones Bay Road
1990 oil on paper 25.5 x 31 cm
Available for sale

This small oil study shows the timber yard on the other side to the previous painting.

In 1994, REVY A and B were renovated for Naval Support Command , and I was commissioned to paint 3 huge paintings for their foyer.

They could be seen from Jones Bay Road until 2005 when Channel 7 moved in. Now these paintings are on Spectacle Island, where unfortunately they can't be seen by the public.

REVY C was vacant from 2005 until its recent redevelopment for apartments.

 

Related Posts 

 

My page of Pyrmont paintings 

 

Pyrmont Paintings past and present 

 

Uptown Festival 2011

No 'glamping' on Cockatoo Island

This is a painting of the Utility crane in front of Sutherland Dock, Cockatoo Island.

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
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For the last decade, the public has been allowed to visit the island, but when I painted this in 2006, it was still off limits.

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was frantically fixing up the infrastructure to be able to open it to tourists. I would travel by barge at the crack of dawn from Mort's Dock with the other workmen.

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75x100cm
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In the afternoon, I had to make sure I didn't miss the last barge back to the mainland, or I'd have to spend the night there.

Now there is 'glamping', but back then there were no facilities at all! No tents, no shelter - I occasionally spent the odd night in a tunnel, which was creepy. There wasn't even drinkable water & we all got terribly sick until we learnt to bring our own water!

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
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20 years before, I had painted on the island, near the end of its life as a working shipyard.

Related Posts

Painting the industrial past on Cockatoo Island

More paintings of Cockatoo Island

The triumph of the machines

In early April 2015 I was asked to paint some of the last manual port movements at the Patrick terminal in Port Botany.
Now the containers are still being unloaded by port workers, but automated straddle cranes stack the containers onto trucks, replacing many port workers.
I was permitted to paint and set up my easel a week before the April change-over.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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My viewpoint was from a narrow balcony above a 2 storey gatehouse.

On the ground floor was the First Aid room, while on the top floor, port workers facing redundancy were receiving career advice.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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From my vantage point I could see the yard being prepared for the new automated system.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm
oil on canvas 2015
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In the centre, concrete barriers were arranged in grids to separate the trucks from the construction.

To the right, the giant stacks of containers were removed, leaving an eerily empty yard.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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To the left is the new observation tower, as yet unmanned, where the new Autostrads will be controlled by radar.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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At night it looked desolate and lonely. 

As the new driverless vehicles are remotely controlled, there won't be the same requirement for lighting the yard.

Painting the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
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At the moment, the giant straddle cranes are still operating with drivers.

Painting the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
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One day the giant straddle cranes and even the trucks may become driverless.

Paintings of Port Botany
Left to right: the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
 giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
100 x 75cm oil on canvas 2015
Night panorama straddle cranes  Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
 Port Botany panorama 31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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I know that it's all in the name of efficiency, but when I left, it looked like a ghost town.

Night,containers,  Port Botany 25 x 31cm oil on canvas 2015
Night, Port Botany panorama 20 x 40cm oil on canvas 2015
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As the last ship before the changeover was unloaded, a line formed of the old straddle cranes which were due to be scrapped soon after.

Night,containers, Port Botany

25 x 31cm oil on canvas 2015

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 Ominously, while I was painting in my temporary gatehouse studio, I had met some of the same people both delivering and receiving career advice 7 years earlier when the East Darling Harbour Wharves  closed down to become Barangaroo.

PB2 'Anatoma, Port Botany' 2015 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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A few weeks after my stint as 'Artist in Residence' at Port Botany, some of the port workers who had received redundancy, were called back to work when some of the robots malfunctioned and dropped a few containers in the water!

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A last look at the Harbour Control Tower

Another one bites the dust

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Patina- Beautiful decay

 GIHC16 'Detail Hammerhead Crane'
 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
SOLD
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY

In my major solo exhibition "Under the Hammer" at the Frances Keevil Gallery there are several paintings of the Hammerhead Crane seen from various vantage points in the middle distance.

However, I also painted several canvases of close-up details that at first sight look like abstract works. I can assure you, they are completely realistic. They just focus on a tiny portion of the subject, unlike most of my work. These paintings have been wildly popular, but I wonder whether it is just because onlookers have become less capable of coping with the complexity of an entire scene, and are only able to appreciate a fragment.

GIHC18 'Girder, Hammerhead Crane
2014 oil on canvas 61 x 91cm 
FINALIST : 2015 HORNSBY ART PRIZE
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Now I can't overstate how much I hate the flat picture plane!

And "modern" art has been all about "the surface", flatness and shallowness, in more ways than one.
In my paintings, I want depth, perspective and layers; physically, emotionally and intellectually.
So even in my canvases of close-up details, there are hidden depths and a sense of space extending beyond the picture plane, especially in the drawings and paintings I created while looking up, standing directly underneath the centre of the crane. I feel that the painting with the greatest sense of space and depth is  "Under the Hammerhead Crane" seen below.
However these canvases of details of the Hammerhead Crane have given me the chance to reveal the transmutations, ambiguities and impermanence of form by the beauty of its decaying exterior.

 GIHC20 'Under the Hammerhead Crane'
2014 oil on canvas 61 x 91cm
 Enquiries

Patina is the visible sign of age on the surface of a material. It panders to our growing desire for the proof of authenticity; a backlash against the homogenized and generic corporate spaces that have taken over so much of our world. Materials are imbued with a history that speaks of ‘natural’ processes accrued over time, such as distressed wood, weather-beaten stone or brick, faded wallpaper, well-worn textiles, rusted ironwork, greening copper - the valued hallmarks of "shabby chic" in upmarket interior decor.

If you lose the texture, you lose your history.
The irony is that patina is seen as adding "authenticity", even though it has been caused by the degeneration and instability of the object.
I think of rust on a metal structure as though it is blood dripping from a wound.

Worship of patina can be seen as yet another symptom of the post-modern obsession with surface at the expense of ‘authentic’ depth.

Patina can be a by-product of the natural process of ageing, but it also functions as a memorial to disaster, natural or otherwise- the architectural equivalent of post-traumatic stress, showing the ‘wound’ inflicted by the trauma of the past as it reverberates down into the present.
Patina straddles the space and time between construction and ruin. The allure of patina lies in its instability; because any attempt to stabilise it affects the essential process.
The art critic Walter Benjamin said that the ‘real’ is only revealed in moments of ruination.
As with ruins, patina represents a fragment that suggests the meaning of the whole. Patina holds together contradictions, reveals historical depth, and yet ironically also remembrance and even healing.

Under the Hammer
Exhibition dates: 

Open from Tuesday 18th November –  Sunday 7th December

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Under the Hammer

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Ozymandias

Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2


Painting the Hammerhead crane Part 1

Ozymandias

Every ruin is a reminder that all things are destined for oblivion.
I am both artist and historian; painting amidst the detritus of the industrial past, walking under rusty girders in the shadow of toppled giants.

'Under the Hammerhead Crane'

2014 ink pastel charcoal on paper 115 x 80cm

FINALIST : 2014 KOGARAH ART PRIZE

FINALIST : 2014 MOSMAN ART PRIZE
Available 

This is a mixed media painting of the Hammerhead Crane, which unfortunately is now being demolished, despite its iconic heritage status and distinguished history.
By now the "hammerhead" of the crane has been almost completely dismantled.
Instead of painting from the more familiar viewpoint of Mrs Macquarie's Chair opposite, I tackled the daunting bureaucracy of the Navy for permission to paint 'en plein air' on Garden Island itself.
I stood directly underneath the Crane and looked up into the top of the soaring structure, to capture its sheer scale. It is the embodiment of the 18th century concept of the sublime.
This painting has now been chosen as a finalist in both the Kogarah Art Prize and the Mosman Art Prize.

People are absent in many of my paintings, even though I trained as a figure painter and for 2 decades spent several days a week drawing and painting figures from life. I find that leaving out figures or relegating them to the role of "staffage" enhances the sense of the powerlessness of the individual against the inexorable forces of destruction and change. The crane itself is the best homage to the absent and largely forgotten workers who created the industrial landscapes that are now being destroyed.

GIHC13 'The Hammerhead Crane - homage to Piranesi' 

2014 ink gouache on paper 56 x 76cm
Available

Spaces that have a sense of history, place and meaning, find an echo in art history.

The safety nets resemble fan vaulting in a ruined Gothic abbey and the zig-zag tangle of girders and scaffolding recall Piranesi's images of the 'Carceri' or the wreckage of the dying Roman Empire.

The Hammerhead Crane was built during World War II, and symbolized industrial might, the march of progress and confidence in the values of Western civilization.
The mood of past triumphalism is now tempered by the present reality of scuffed textures, rust and tarnished metal.
Even as a victim of the slow death of de-industrialization, it had retained a poignant grandeur as industrial memento mori.
The last gasp of the Industrial Revolution, and of Sydney's Working Harbour.
In the words of Shelley's ruin-poem Ozymandias "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Except that a future civilization would be extremely lucky to be able to find any trace of our heroic past.

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Hammerhead Crane

Patina - Beautiful Decay

Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2

Painting the Icebreaker "Polar Star"

Under the Hammer

Before the Navy finally booted me off Garden Island, I made sure that I tackled some large scale drawings
Since 2007, due to real or perceived safety issues, temporary catch platforms have been suspended from the long arm and short arm jibs. They spoil the line, but apparently provide access to allow condition inspections to be performed safely.
At first glance, it looks as though the Hammerhead Crane has 5 legs.
However, one of these "legs" is a lift to give access from the wharf to the slew ring level (seen in the centre at the top of my drawing). As the crane is 61m high, this wasn't an idle luxury.
Unfortunately this lift has been out of operation since 1998.

While drawing this, I met probably the last person to have ever used the lift. He was escorting a group of photographers to the top, and had pressed the lift button when he heard a muffled explosion, and then found his hands were black with graphite.

He said that he was lucky and got off lightly. I think he was right.

'Under the Hammerhead Crane' 2014
ink, pastel, charcoal,graphite on paper 140 x 110cm
WINNER : 2014 DRAWING PRIZE ROYAL EASTER SHOW
Enquiries

My hands were also black with graphite after creating this enormous drawing.
I stood directly underneath and looked up into the top of the soaring structure.
By looking up I sought to capture the Burke and Longinus concept of the "sublime", with its overtones of awe, terror and vertigo, rather than the picturesque aspect of the typical "hammerhead" profile, a view familiar from Mrs Macquarie's Chair opposite.
The girders were silhouetted against the open sky; the safety nets resembling fan vaulting in a ruined Gothic abbey.

While creating this enormous drawing, I also remembered Piranesi's devastating images of Roman ruins, dangerously broken and overgrown amid the wreckage of a dead civilization.

 GIHC7 'Under the Hammerhead Crane'
2014 ink pastel charcoal on paper 76 x 56cm

Enquiries

I am an artist and historian, born into a time and place where only sport and business are valued. Drawing on the ruins of the industrial past , walking under rusty girders in the shadow of toppled giants.

Every ruin is implicitly a reminder that all things are destined for oblivion.

The Hammerhead Crane was built to demonstrate industrial might and the march of progress.

Even as a victim of the slow death of de-industrialization, it retains a poignant grandeur.

This was exhibited in my solo show "Under the Hammer" at the Frances Keevil Gallery from November 18th - December 7th 2014.

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Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2

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Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2

Starting to paint my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm
Enquiries

The Hammerhead Crane was constructed between 1944 – 1951 as part of a major development of the Garden Island naval facilities that also included the Captain Cook graving dock.
It was originally intended to serve the ships of both the British and Australian Navies.
 The British Navy had access to the 250 ton Hammerhead Crane at Singapore until 1942. When Singapore fell, this crane was destroyed, but its design and steelwork construction drawings were reused for the Garden Island crane.

Starting to paint my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm
Enquiries

The crane designer was Sir William Arrol Co Ltd of Glasgow, with Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners of London as consultants.
The 250 ton crane was the largest size of the 18 Arrol Titans constructed from 1910 to 1960. The Garden Island Hammerhead Crane was one of the six 250 ton Arrol Titans.

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm
Enquiries

Between 1989 – 1991  the crane capacity was reduced and inspections and repairs were carried out.
In 1995 Jigger hoist was withdrawn from service due to runway corrosion.
1996 seems to have been the last known date of operation.

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm Enquiries

Large riveted structures have an inherent problem.
They have, by the nature of their construction, many inaccessible surfaces which can't be completely sealed against water and are therefore prone to corrosion.

Work in progress on the easel

"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 

2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm

Enquiries

This problem was well understood by the designers of the Hammerhead.
Their specifications required that all surfaces to be brought together should be painted with two coats of red lead in boiled linseed oil as a corrosion protective coating, before fit up and riveting. The surfaces were supposed to be brought together while the 2nd paint layer was still wet.
This was the normal procedure to limit corrosion on inaccessible surfaces.

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm

Enquiries

However, according to the Hammerhead Crane report by Godden Mackay Logan an analysis of the paint layers is as follows:
Substrate: Dark Brown Mill Scale on Steel
First paint layer: Yellow Zinc Chromate Primer
Second Paint Layer: Light Grey Aluminium Top-Coat
Third Paint Layer: Dark Orange Red Lead Primer
Fourth Paint Layer: Grey Alkyd MIO

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm

Enquiries

A Zinc Chromate primer as well as a second coat of grey aluminium paint lie underneath the layer of red lead over most of the crane. 

This was completely contrary to the original specifications of the designers. And with good reason.

Red lead is intended for direct application to ferrous substrates, so it is of limited value when applied over existing paint. 

The National Paints product sheet says that red lead primers are " not suitable for over coating of zinc primed steel".

So there.

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm
Enquiries

Red lead/Lead tetraoxide (Formula: Pb3O4) is a bright red, heavy, water and alcohol insoluble, poisonous compound and has been used as a pigment since the time of the Roman empire. It was originally known as minium, after the Minius River in northwest Spain where it was first mined. Red lead was usually obtained as a powder by heating the yellow lead ore known as litharge. In the medieval period it was used as a pigment in the production of illuminated manuscripts, and gave its name to the miniature.

In combination with linseed oil, red lead is incomparably useful as a thick, long-lasting anti-corrosive paint.

However red lead  is also notoriously and horribly toxic. 

But then, so is zinc chromate.

Painting my canvas of the 
"Hammerhead Crane from Garden Island" 
2014 oil on canvas 91 x 61cm

Enquiries

Every now and then I can see a sallow greenish yellow hue seeping mockingly through the apparently uniform grey top coat. 

What were they thinking when they applied the zinc chromate primer? 

The combination of a zinc based primer and aluminium based 2nd coat makes me suspect that the first painters of the Hammerhead were attempting a "zinc-alume" solution. The theory is that aluminium and zinc oxides will migrate to a scratched surface and provide enhanced corrosion protection. 

In practice, it didn't work.

GIHC6 ' Looking up at the Hammerhead Crane'
2014 oil on paper 12 x 12cm
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There are large areas of breakdown and surface corrosion occurring on the Hammerhead Crane where the paint layers have failed.
Rusting through the paint due to corroding millscale is also common.

Rust is a common metaphor, even a cliche, for slow decay. It gradually but thoroughly corrupts robust iron and steel metal into a soft crumbling powder.
In my paintings, I am grateful for the patches of rust. They add a dash of much needed warmth and texture to contrast with the monotony of the cool grey colour of the steel.
But in real life, rust is something I am sorry to see. It speaks of neglect, of compromise, of lack of foresight, of laziness, of apathy, of failure to preserve and protect.
Decay is not merely physical.

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Under the Hammer

Patina - Beautiful Decay
Painting the International Fleet Review at Barangaroo Part 2