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.

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Painting the industrial past on Cockatoo Island

More paintings of Cockatoo Island

Isolation Gallery- Walsh Bay

Today's painting featured in my Isolation gallery is from over 20 years ago. It shows the redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I was 'Artist in Residence' at the Woolloomooloo Fingerwharves during their redevelopment & refurbishment in the late 1990s. Many of the same construction workers later worked on the transformation of Walsh Bay Wharves a couple of years later, so they inherited me as 'Artist in Residence'.

I painted the derelict, fire-ravaged and soon to be demolished Wharves 6-7  from the interior of Wharf 8-9.

The green netting and bright yellow boom contrasts with the red brick and weathered timber of the wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I can't believe how much this area has changed since this painting!

Barangaroo has replaced the East Darling Harbour Wharves, aka 'The Hungry Mile', one of the last relics of Sydney's Working Harbour. 

The residents of Millers Point have mostly been relocated, & the area almost resembles a ghost town.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

More at my WALSH BAY WHARVES page on this blog

 

Paintings of a passing Port 

 

The last of the Hungry Mile 

 

Barangaroo - tabula rasa