Patina- Beautiful decay

 GIHC16 'Detail Hammerhead Crane'
 2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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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
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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

Related posts

Painting the icebreaker 'Polar Star'

Under the Hammer

Hammerhead Crane

Ozymandias

Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2


Painting the Hammerhead crane Part 1

There goes the neighbourhood

MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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In my new exhibition, "Under the Hammer"  at the Frances Keevil Gallery there is a large and pretty panoramic canvas of High Street.
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.

MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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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.

MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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Now it is undergoing a painful and cataclysmic metamorphosis. Every vestige of its colourful past will be swept away. 

 Including the people.

The artist painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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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. 

Painting MP9 'Millers Point. Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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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.

Painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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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.

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.
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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.

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
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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.

Painting MP9 'Millers Point, Barangaroo
and the Harbour Tower from High st'
oil on canvas 61 x 183cm 2014
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Remember, when you admire the Impressionists, that they painted during the forced clearances of inner city Paris by the despotic town planner Baron Haussmann.
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?

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

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To return to my painting, behind the trees is the sign of the Barangaroo development.
But the letters are partially obscured; all you can make out is “a n g ...r”.
Hidden anger? With a sugar coating.


Related articles

• Another city landmark gets the brush-off March 31, 2014 Written by Nicole Hasham State Politics reporter Sydney Morning Herald
• Millers Point Three Years On  Author : Vanessa Berry Her blog : Mirror Sydney

Stairway to Nowhere

No way in, & no way out. 

No way up & no way down. 

High above street level and clinging to the northern end of the sandstone escarpment fringing Hickson Road in Millers Point, is a stairway to nowhere.

The entrance and exit are totally bricked-up. 

Everyone has heard of 'ghost signs' - but these are 'ghost stairs'.

Where are these spooky steps meant to lead?

MP2 Hickson Road stairs to nowhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2014 acrylic on canvas 31 x 26cm

Available for sale 

It just sits there embedded in the sandstone.  

No-one can climb into the section in the centre, as the base is totally bricked-in.

Presumably it wasn't fully bricked up because of financial considerations, & the partial enclosure would serve to prevent even the most determined parkour enthusiast from climbing to the top. 

'Tomason' aka Thomasson or Hyperart Thomasson (Japanese: Tomason トマソン or Chōgeijutsu Tomason 超芸術トマソン) is a type of conceptual art named by the Japanese artist Akasegawa Genpei , a member of a Japanese art & architecture collective formed in 1986 known as Rojo Kansatsu (Roadside Observation). It's a term for useless, abandoned leftovers, which have been inadvertently preserved & even maintained as unintentional art created by the city itself. They are strange & haunting vestiges of the incessant churn of building, destruction, and redevelopment that characterizes the city. The equivalent of a human appendix or the vestigial remnants of tiny non-functional limbs on a snake's skeleton. 

The inspiration for the term was Gary Thomasson, a baseball player signed with great fanfare & given a huge contract, but who put in a such a disappointing performance that his name became a byword for uselessness. His position on the team was a fitting analogy for "an object, part of a building, that was maintained in good condition, but with no purpose, to the point of becoming a work of art." A 'Stairway to nowhere' is a type of 'Tomason' also known as a "Pure Staircase"(Japanese: Muyō kaidan 無用階段 )

It makes a quirky counterpart to 2 fully functional steps at opposite ends of the wharf precinct - High Steps & Agar Steps. The High steps were cut into the cliff face at the southernmost end of High Street. Agar Steps is on the western side of Observatory Hill, connecting Kent Street and Upper Fort Street. They were designed as a continuation of Agar Street, (now High Street) named after Thomas Agars, a merchant and City councillor. Originally called the Flagstaff Steps, Agar Steps was built to provide access to the Model School &Sydney Observatory.

During the early 20th century, the streetscapes of Millers Point were in a state of turmoil subsequent to large scale resumption by the Government as part of its program to eradicate the Bubonic plague.

By the 1920s whole streets had disappeared, new cliff faces had been carved into the bedrock and hundreds of houses were demolished & replaced. Quarrying to sea level along Hickson Road resulted in the creation of a platform carved into the exposed sandstone, creating a new urban terrace, 'High Street' by the Sydney Harbour Trust. 

The stairs cling to the wall above Hickson Road, leading up towards High Street & the deck of one of the three bridges built across Hickson Road.
The three bridges which carry Argyle, Munn and Windmill Streets over Hickson Road are rare examples of Monier Arch bridges. They were constructed along with the cuttings and other civil works in the area between 1910 and 1914 as part of the redevelopment of Walsh Bay by the Sydney Harbour Trust.  For the time, they were controversial & cutting edge technology as they were some of the earliest bridges to be built in Sydney using a new material called ferro-concrete (now known as reinforced concrete). 

The stairway to nowhere is a relic left over from the construction of the Monier bridge over Argyle street.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

 

'Antigonish (I met a man who wasn't there)'

by Hughes Mearns
 

Except it was the stair that wasn't there.

In metaphysics, a paradoxical argument by Willard Van Orman Quine in his 1948 paper "On What There Is" used the phrase 'Plato's beard' as a term for the philosophy of understanding something based on what does not exist. 

'Plato's beard' may blunt 'Occam's Razor'.

Related Posts

 

My Millers Point page in this blog

 

May close without warning

 

Barangaroo - Tabula Rasa

 

Banners, Millers Point

 

There goes the neighbourhood 

 

 

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!

 TSW11 'George st from Thompson Square '
 2013 oil on canvas 31 x 153cm
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 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".

I've decided to paint a series of studies of individual shops.

Starting to paint a small canvas
'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee'
2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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Windsor Seafoods at 74 George St Windsor is in the AC Stearn Building.built in 1907.

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.

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.

Starting to paint a small canvas
'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee '
2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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The original balcony of this handsome two story building  was unfortunately removed in the 1950's.

However it was later restored to its former grandeur  in 1975, and then was updated again in 1988, in preparation for the Bicentenary celebrations.

Halfway through painting a small canvas
'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee '
2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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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.

Halfway through painting a small canvas
'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee '
2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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 Gloria Jean's Coffee is one of 3 little eateries in what apparently used to be a single building.

The other 2 are "Grill on George" and Stir Crazy" but aren't visible in these pictures.

Starting to paint 
TSW18 'Windsor Seafoods'
2014 oil on canvas 36 x 28cm
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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.

TSW17 'Windsor Seafoods and Gloria Jean's Coffee '
2014 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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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.

TSW18 'Windsor Seafoods'
2014 oil on canvas 36 x 28cm
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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.

Related posts

Monet and Streeton meet Windsor Bridge

The Boiling Frog

The Phantom Toll House

Painting Thompson Square, Windsor

See my page in this blog of Windsor paintings

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.

 MW16 'North Barangaroo Headland Park-
The 'Blue Line' from Moore's Wharf ' 
2011 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm

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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".

 MW28 'North Barangaroo Headland Park -
The caissons from Moore's Wharf '
2013 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm
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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.

Related posts

Out from the storerooms- Paintings in the new galleries of the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

Barangaroo paintings in the Frances Keevil Gallery

Millers Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower

Lashed to the Mast - Plein Air painting, Moore's Wharf