Painting Sydney Harbour in the footsteps of Turner

All this winter I've felt something's been lacking.

Vivid.

Due to Covid-19 it couldn't be held this year, and for all I know New Year's Eve and Australia Day celebrations may not be held in the foreseeable future either.

I've often mocked Sydney for valuing style over substance, but I have to confess that I like a mindlessly pretty display of fairy lights against a harbour view as much as anyone.

So for anyone getting withdrawal symptoms, here's one on the easel of my deck gallery.

U118 Fireship under the Bridge
oil on canvas 2003 61 x 91cm
Available for sale
This canvas of the burning ship against a backdrop of fireworks illuminating the Sydney Harbour Bridge was painted in the studio from a series of quick gouache studies that I did on New Year's Eve 2003, well over a decade before Vivid was ever thought of. I regard this as a sort of 'proto-Vivid'.
It added a new dimension to the usual fireworks and was a startling sight if you weren't aware that it was in fact a special effect, and not a tragic fire on board the 'James Craig'.
The first time I saw it, like hundreds, possibly thousands of others, I rang 000 in a panic to report it. You could almost hear the person from Emergency Services rolling their eyes, as they assured me that it was just a special effect, that , no, the James Craig was just fine, and thanked me for my misplaced concern.
The Fireship apparently commemorated an early 19th century convict ship that had caught fire, and in the weeks after, during the Sydney Festival, there was a 'son et lumiere' show every night for a couple of weeks. I forget the details and the story, and frankly I think everyone else did as well. The images of the fire reflected in the water were all the spectators really were interested in, and the story seemed just a flimsy excuse.
As I painted some quick sketches in gouache and watercolour, I was glad that i'd spent so much of my 1996 Marten Bequest Traveling Art Scholarship holed up in the Print and Drawing Room of the Clore Gallery (the section of the Tate Gallery devoted to the work of Turner, obsessively painting studies of the many fabulous Turner watercolours in their collection. The Petworth series and the burning of the Houses of Parliament were my favourites. I became so good at painting them that the staff became slightly alarmed, and demanded that I sign my studies on the back so that I wouldn't be able to do a bit of a 'switcheroo' while their backs were turned! I took this as a sort of a backhanded compliment, but my goal wasn't to just mindlessly copy, but to try to conquer the mystery of painting sea,sky, storm, night and fire. How to make the intangible, tangible.
When I returned from my Traveling Art Scholarship, I actually exhibited some of these in a couple of exhibitions "The Grand Tour" and "In the Footsteps of the Masters" that acted like a sort of debriefing - a transition phase from the scholarship to the routine of regular commercial exhibitions.
I'd seen a lot of amazing art, and learnt a lot, but how was I going to incorporate this into what I would paint on my return?

U118 Fireship under the Bridge
oil on canvas 2003 61 x 91cm
Available for sale
Painting the Fireship was a chance to give a virtuoso display of layers of translucent glazes of breathtakingly expensive and exotic colours such as Aureolin, Rose Madder and Alizarin Crimson. These aren't the sort of colours that usually get a work out during plein air painting.
However, as I started to paint lost trades and dying industries, I would get more and more frequent opportunities to use them. Subjects like the Oxycutter at William Wallbank and Sons, or the Blacksmiths at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops provided further connections to the lost world of the Early Industrial Revolution that Turner and his predecessors de Loutherbourg and Joseph Wright of Derby immortalized. The major difference is that these artists were painting the founding of this era - I'm painting its demise.

Related Posts


Vivid

Meltdown, Oxycutting at William Wallbank and Sons

Irons in the fire

Painting the industrial past on Cockatoo Island - Before and After

Cockatoo Island, the largest island in Sydney Harbour, is located at the intersection of the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers. It is the last vestige of the era of the Industrial Revolution remaining in Sydney.

CK8B & CK52 Crane & slipway from the Officers headquarters
1989 & 2007 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm

Enquiries

Between 1839 -1869 Cockatoo Island was a prison colony.

The inmates not only excavated the 2 tunnels and 2 graving docks that nearly bisect the island, but to add insult to injury they even had to build their own gaol using the excavated sandstone of the island! The only successful escapee was bushranger Captain Thunderbolt (his more prosaic real name was Fred Ward), who escaped on 19th September 1863.

After its stint as Sydney's 'Alcatraz' the island was used as a graving dock,  reformatory and industrial schools, and a major shipbuilding site.
In the early twentieth century Cockatoo Island became one of Australia’s most important industrial sites where ships were built, repaired and modified. Thousands were trained and employed there. I still meet people who did their apprenticeship as a boilermaker or fitter and turner on Cockatoo Island.

As the progressive removal of tariffs, regressive government policies, the high dollar and the pressures of globalization helped kill off Australian manufacturing, the focus of employment has turned increasingly to tourism, entertainment and service industries.

Most of Sydney’s former sites of industrial and maritime activity have now been gobbled up by developers for monolithic dormitories of beige apartment blocks. After many political battles, some remaining industrial structures of Cockatoo Island have been retained, against all odds. Although some large workshops, slipways, wharves, residences and other buildings remain, such as the Turbine Shop and the Mould Loft, many major buildings were demolished after Cockatoo Island closed as a dockyard in 1991.

Now it's a UNESCO world heritage site and its industrial ambience has been exploited for many cultural events. It was the site for the filming of X Men Origins -Wolverine and several 'reality' programs. Since 2008 it has been the flagship venue of Sydney’s Biennale. However, its original function as part of Sydney’s rapidly disappearing Working Harbour, has gone forever.
When I was 'Artist in Residence' there in the mid-late 1980s and then again in the early 2000s, I was the only artist on the island.

For the last decade, the public has been allowed to visit the island, but when I painted the 2nd canvas in 2007, 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.

CK8B 2 Cranes on the North-West Slipway
1989 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm
Enquiries

I started painting on Cockatoo Island in the mid 1980s when it was still operational and submarines were still being refitted there.

I'd have to sign the Official Secrets Act and promise faithfully not to paint any submarines or sell any of my paintings to the Russians. I'd leave my easel, paints and table in the office of the Ship Painters and Dockers building between Fitzroy and Sutherland docks.

There was a sign "Pro Painter Foreman" on the door, which always made me laugh. I was so naive that I didn't know anything about the reputation of this notorious union!

These two canvases were painted at the same location,the north - western slipway, at the same time of day, at the same time of year and on the same format canvas - but 18 years apart.

CK52 Crane & slipway from the Officers headquarters
2007 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm
Enquiries

The most obvious difference between the 1989 and 2007 paintings is the omission of the pale green crane, a casualty of a storm not long after the 1989 canvas was painted.

This was the Butters crane, purchased from the Whyalla Shipyards in 1979, when Cockatoo Island was trying to adopt more innovative strategies,for the construction of HMAS Success in 1983-4. The rather forlorn looking crane left on its own in the 2007 painting, was the ex- West Wall crane, also a comparatively recent addition to the island, as it was relocated from Garden Island in the 1970s.

This partial modernization was a false dawn, however, as HMAS Success would be last ever ship built and launched at Cockatoo Island. Less than 8 years later, the island was closed.     

Related Posts

My page of Cockatoo Island Paintings

No 'glamping' on Cockatoo Island

Article written by Steve Meacham in the Sydney Morning Herald

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
Enquiries

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
Enquiries

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
Enquiries

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

Oils ain't oils- Painting Still Life in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

A still life typically depicts inanimate subject matter. 

It was initially despised as the most lowly form of painting. But every still life is a memento mori.
Memento mori is Latin for “Remember that you must die”.
I've delved into the long tradition of the ‘still life’ genre, which celebrates the magic power of painting an arrangement of commonplace objects to reflect on ideas of mortality.
When captured in paint, they are imbued with a life beyond the ordinary.

"Vanitas” elements reveal the emptiness of material pursuits and futility of earthly ambitions.  

The Latin noun Vanitas literally means “emptiness” and the central theme in these paintings is the Christian view of earthly life and the futility  & worthlessness of all ambition.

I love to paint “useless” things from industrial sites, the minutiae of everyday life. There's a poignant quality in this “rubbish”, so trivial to most. These remnants provide me with an endless source of subject matter. There are no people in these pictures but their presence is always felt. History, memory and observation provide the bones of the story.

E130A Oils ain't oils 1 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale  

These rusty old oil cans from the interior of the Large Erecting Shop in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops truly are symbols of transience. They will be discarded and thrown into the skip bin as soon as I've finished my canvases. I've won them a stay of execution with my paintings.

E130B Oils ain't oils 2 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale 

They contained the necessary ingredient to lubricate engines to keep them moving. Literally, to make something go. 

And they went.

Locomotives won't be repaired and maintained in the Large Erecting Shop for much longer. The best possible future for it will be as a running shed where only exactly what is strictly necessary to run trains will be tolerated. All else will be relocated at best, or discarded at worst. If it doesn't become a running shed, Mirvac and Channel 7 are lurking just outside to finish it off.

E130C Oils ain't oils 3 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale   

Behind the oil cans was a board with inscriptions "1/2 Nuts", "5/8 Nuts", "3/4 Nuts","7/8 Nuts", which always made me laugh. You don't have to be totally nuts to work her, just half.

E132 Oils ain't oils 2 2017 oil on aluminium panel 51 x 51cm.

Available for sale 

I've concocted different methods for reproducing variety of surfaces  by experimenting with painting on metal panels.
This works well with the rusty cans - I leave the metal bare of paint and only paint in the rust.

This technique pays homage to the distant past.

When light rebounds from a matte surface, the irregularites of the surface scatter the light. However when light strikes a smooth polished surface such as metal there is a gleam, shimmer or lustre which can even reveal the shape of the original light source. Medieval students of optics called the depiction of reflected light in a painting "splendour". Light was not only regarded as beautiful, but also deemed to be sacred. This quality of light was difficult to reproduce in painting. Early medieval artists would rely on the inclusion of reflective and precious metals such as gold leaf, until the development of oil painting in the 15th century allowed artists like van Eyck the ability to create the illusion of reflection by superimposing thin translucent layers of colour. 

The workmen trained in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops were master manipulators of metal, so in these still life paintings I am using both these artistic traditions to capture every nuance of their lost tools.

Related Posts

Shadowboard

Ghost Train 

Revenant 

Nocturne - painting steam locomotive 3642

38's are great, mate 

Charge your battery 

Scar Tissue