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

Painting the Svitzer tug Wonga in Sydney Harbour

The 'Wonga' was built in 1983 and was one of the Svitzer 'pusher' tugs.

Their names started with 'W' - Wilga, Wonga, Woona, Walan, Watagan. I've no idea why they picked that particular letter to christen their tugs. As a 'wonga' is a type of pigeon, not a marine bird, I'm not sure why this name was chosen for a marine vessel.

To me, the trio of names 'Wilga', 'Wonga', 'Woona', had a sort of alliterative poetry, and whenever I painted one of the three, I would be asked if I also had paintings of the other two, to make up the set.

DH236 'The tug 'Wonga' with 'Victorian Reliance''
2007 oil on board 20 x 25cm
SOLD
Enquiries about other paintings of tugs

This shows the 'Wonga' in action with a cargo ship.

They were once a very common sight in Sydney Harbour, when Sydney Harbour was still a fully working port. As 'Artist in Residence' on the East Darling Harbour Wharves during the first decade of this century, I would see at least one of these tugs everyday. If they weren't accompanying one of the container ships or Ro-ros (roll-on roll-off car vessels) to the East Darling Harbour Wharves, Glebe Island or White Bay, they would be escorting a cruise ship to the Cruise ship terminal at Darling Harbour Wharf 8, or an oil tanker to Gore bay.

DH241 'The 'Wonga' 2011
oil on board 28 x 35cm
Available

This painting shows the 'Wonga' passing Goat Island. It was on its way to a new task, from its then home in East Balmain next to the ferries.

The number of tugs in Sydney Harbour declined with the closure of East Darling Harbour Wharves and its replacement with the controversial Barangaroo development project.

DH194 The 'Wonga' 2008
oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
SOLD
Enquiries about other paintings of tugs

This earlier painting shows the 'Wonga' passing Balmain.

Now, the 'Wonga' is one of the 2 tugs (the other being the 'Walan') based at Port Pirie which is located 223 kilometres north of Adelaide at the top of Upper Spencer Gulf,

Port Pirie, a small town of 16,000, is still home to the type of heavy industry now removed from Sydney Harbour. The Nyrstar concentrate smelter in Port Pirie is one of the largest smelters in the world.

Related Posts

Painting the tugboats of Sydney Harbour

Marine Art exhibition at Australian Maritime Museum

In the pink -the former Pyrmont Arms Hotel, Harris Street Pyrmont

The former pub 'The Pyrmont Arms' was at 42-44 Harris Street, Pyrmont on the corner of Harris and Bowman Streets.
Built in the 1870s,it closed in the early 1990s when the CSR refinery and distillery were progressively shut down and demolished to make way for the Jackson's landing development. Since then, it has been renovated as retail outlets, restaurants and home units.

P248 The 'Pyrmont Arms' from the CSR 1

1990 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available

I first painted the Pyrmont Arms Hotel as a bird's eye view from the roof of the CSR refinery.I had been the 'Artist in Residence' at the CSR Refinery from the late 1980s to the start of its demolition in the mid 1990s. I had previously been painting at the top of the Panhouse, but one day in a fit of bravery I decided to paint from the top of the Boilerhouse next to the chimneys.
The CSR boilerhouse is now the site of the 'Elizabeth' apartment block of the Jackson's Landing LendLease development.
The Pyrmont Arms Hotel was then still an operating pub and was painted a grubby faded pale pinkish beige. On the back of the pub's western side facing the Scott Street squats, there was a huge ad for 'Have a cold gold KB', unfortunately not visible from my rooftop studio. Across the road was the brick facade of the CSR chem labs.
It didn't stand out from the rest of the rather dingy terraces at the 'Land's End' of Harris street, but what caught my eye was the contrast between the terraces and the overgrown area around the squats that was rapidly turning into a wilderness. I painted a small square canvas focussing on just the Pyrmont Arms, and resolved one day to paint a panorama of the northern end of Harris Street from this vantage point.

P249 'Pyrmont panorama- from the CSR '

1991 oil on canvas 46 x 92cm

Available

A few months later, I climbed the many levels of revolting, sugar syrup encrusted stairs to the top of the CSR boilerhouse again, to paint this panorama, and was startled to find that the formerly almost unnoticeable pub had succumbed to a brash attempt at 'renovation'.
Weirdly, it shared the same revolting shade of pink with another dying pub at the other end of Pyrmont, the 'New York Hotel' in Edward Street, opposite the Pyrmont Power Station.
This fluoro paint job was such a product of its time that it defined the late 1980s to 1990s, a period without style or taste. I remember leggings and jumpers in that same fabulously horrid "glow in the dark" colour, possibly an over-reaction against the ochres and browns of the 1970s. In architecture, it was known not very fondly as "Paddington Pink" or "Paddo pink" for short, although the examples in Paddington itself were much more muted.

P248B 'The 'Pyrmont Arms' from the CSR 2'

1991 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available

It made the Pyrmont Arms stick out like a sore thumb from the dingy red brick warehouses and bond stores, and not in a good way.
I don't know if it was still an operating pub then or whether the new paint job was a desperate last ditch attempt to attract customers or preparation for its sale and possible redevelopment.
For the truth was that the pubs of Pyrmont were hanging by a thread. Their customers were gone with the destruction or relocation of the local industries that had employed them, and the industries of Pyrmont's future were yet to replace them.
The CSR Refinery and Distillery, which had replaced the sandstone quarrymen of northern Pyrmont a century before, was almost deserted and would be demolished and replaced with Jackson's Landing by the middle of the decade. But there was a strange interregnum before the new apartments were built and filled with inhabitants, and the northern end of Harris Street was a ghost town.
The iconic Terminus Hotel, only 2 blocks further up Harris Street, had already ceased trading a decade before, and stood abandoned, neglected and a constant source of speculation for the next 30 years, before its very recent renovation. How the 'Royal Pacific', later to be rechristened the 'Pyrmont Point'/ 'Point Hotel', ever kept on trading is a much bigger mystery that any of the urban myths swirling around the 30 year vacancy of the Terminus.
What is it with the lurid colour schemes inflicted on moribund pubs?
Far from Pyrmont, another doomed hotel, the 'Jolly Frog' also got the pink treatment not long before it suffered one of those mysterious fires that afflict abandoned buildings.
They must have used the same colourblind painter and decorator. And he must have got the paint at a huge discount, or it might have 'fallen off the back of a truck'.
Either way, it didn't work. All closed as pubs not long after.

P248C '42 Harris st -ex Pyrmont Arms'

2012 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available

The 'New York Hotel' has been painted a tasteful off-white, and is now a medical centre, of all things!
'The Pyrmont Arms' has now been painted a dull blue on the ground floor and a muted yellow for the upper floors. It is no longer a hotel, but has been reasonably sympathetically renovated and is now a combination of apartments above and a bottle-o below.

And the Jolly Frog, 6 years after its devastating fire, is still awaiting redevelopment.

Related Posts

Paintings of Pink Pubs

The Boiling Frog

My page of Pyrmont Paintings

A Tale of 2 Pyrmont Hotels - The Terminus and the Point

To the Point

Pretty Vacant

Terminus Redux