All fired up

Designer + Blacksmith = The Collaborative Effect

 This event, coordinated by Alain-Henri Chazelles of IN HOUSE GROUP3, brought designer Alex Ritchie, (Creative Director of experiential design agency E2) and metalworker Guido Gouverneur (Blacksmith and Metalworker of Wrought Artworks and Steel Windows and Doors), together to discuss forged iron and conceptually designed architectural metalwork in the built environment.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
 Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Guido and his team of blacksmiths also gave an exciting forging demonstration. 

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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I also gave a demonstration of how I paint fast-moving artisans working in darkness, while attempting to dodge the twirling batons of red-hot metal that they waved around with such nonchalant grace.

Exhibition by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
 painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
 Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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I exhibited a selection of my paintings of the Blacksmiths of Wrought Artworks as well as paintings of the fascinating interior and Victorian era heritage industrial machinery of the site.
One of the great drawcards of the ATP has been the continual operation of Blacksmith’s shop in Bays 1 & 2 South at the ATP.  From the very beginning it has been seen as maintaining a link to the buildings industrial past. The construction of the ATP had even included the erection of an acoustic wall so that the workshop could continue to function close to the new occupants. However the existance of the Blacksmith's shop was threatened when the Redfern Waterloo Authority served them with a notice to quit by the 30th September 2008. After a successful campaign and Open Day the RWA and the Blacksmiths then signed a Lease that preserved the operating Blacksmiths and recognised the vital importance of heritage preservation in the operations of the Technology Park.
See the history of the campaign to save the blacksmith :
Redwatch "ATP's operating Blacksmith"

Exhibition by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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 The photos of me in action were taken by Frances Keevil, the Director of the Frances Keevil Gallery.

E83 'Blacksmith forging '
2011 ink pastel acrylic on paper 9 x 10cm  
WINNER 2nd Prize for Miniature Painting 
2011 Royal Easter Show 

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E64 The Blacksmith 2011
oil on canvas 75x100cm
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See "Designer + Blacksmith = Collaborative Effect"

Next year, for a single day on Saturday 25th February 2012, the whole Australian Technology Park will be open to the public.

There will be another forging demonstration and I will have an even larger exhibition of paintings, as well as giving a demonstration of painting the heritage interiors and the blacksmiths.

 Eveleigh paintings

Related posts

Irons in the fire
Watching the forge fires fade
Macdonaldtown - A Station without a suburb
Eveleigh- Industrial Heritage Artist at Work
The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
Time for Safety 
The slow return from the fire 
The fire within 
En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)

"May close without warning" My solo exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery : Part 3- Meet the artist

May close without warning" will soon close!

On Saturday 29th October 2011 from 2-4pm, I'm giving an artist's talk about how and why I created this series of paintings

Please join us this Saturday 29th October, 2011

from 2 - 4pm, to meet JANE BENNETT

MW2 'Cleaning the boom in front of the 'Shirley Smith'

2011 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm

Available for sale
Enquiries about this painting

MW1 'Cleaning the boom in front of the 'Shirley Smith'
2011 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available for sale

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BAR8 'I saw the number 8 in red'
2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
SOLD
Enquiries about this painting

BAR7 'Red Square (Strange Customs)'
2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
Available for sale
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Related posts

May close without warning - Part 2 : "All that is solid melts into air"

Pyrmont : Shadows of the past

"May close without warning" Solo Exhibition, Frances Keevil Gallery

View from the ivory tower (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

Cut off (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

Transmogrify (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

My Paintings in the Xmas exhibition,  Frances Keevil Gallery (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

"May close without warning" Solo exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery Part 2 "All that is solid melts into air"

More Paintings and Drawings from my solo exhibition
"May close without warning"
at the Frances Keevil Gallery
11 - 30 OCTOBER 2011
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

'May Close without warning...'

 My paintings and drawings are accompanied by some excerpts from "The Meanings of Deindustrialization" by Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, Saint Louis University 2003  Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History. Paper 33

Painting 'en plein air'  "White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold
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"The point of departure for any discussion of deindustrialization must be respect

for the despair and betrayal felt by workers as their mines, factories,
and mills were padlocked, abandoned, turned into artsy shopping spaces, or even dynamited."

"White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold
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"While economists and business leaders often speak in neutral, even hopeful, terms such as "restructuring," "downsizing" or "creative destruction," metaphors of defeat and subjugation are more appropriate for the workers who banked on good-paying industrial jobs for the livelihoods of their families and their communities..."

Painting 'en plein air' 

"White Bay Power Station Chimney stacks"

2011 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm

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"In fact, the first public use of the term "deindustrialization" identified the Allies' policy toward Germany just after World War II: an active process of victors stripping a vanquished nation of its industrial power."

"White Bay Power Station Coal Loader" 
2011 oil on board 35 x 28cm

"The dramatic evidence of industrial change and capital flight that litters our landscapes does, however, present a basic collective problem: How do we account for the destruction of an economic order that seemed so rooted and pervasive?"

"Industrial Cathedral"
charcoal drawing on paper 131 x 131 cm 

This drawing was a finalist in the 1998 Dobell Prize for Drawing (Art Gallery of N.S.W.) ; Finalist in 1998 Blake Prize for Religious Art ; Winner of 1998 Hunter's Hill Open Art Prize

"In the end, what may be most troubling about these ruined industrial landscapes is not that they refer to some once stable era, but rather that they remind us of the ephemeral quality of the world we take for granted."

"Grabber, Muncher, Ripper"
2010 oil on canvas 31 x 31 cm

Outside the derelict wharf, the demolition team waited patiently for all the preliminary drilling and checks to be completed before they got the green light to start.

The parrot beaks of the excavation attachments and their scarred and scaly skin reminded me of the animated re-creations of Tyrannosaurus rex.

These particular attachments are actually really called "Munchers"! The names of other attachments eg. "Buckets", "Grabbers", "Rippers" and "Pulverizers" are also reminiscent of comic books and children's toys.

"If Karl Marx was right in saying "all that is solid melts into air," then the industrial culture forged in the furnace of fixed capital investment was itself a temporary condition. What millions of working men and women might have experienced as solid, dependable, decently waged work really only lasted for a brief moment in the history of capitalism."

"Dave and Lok forging at 'Wrought Artworks', Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm
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"Because capital was fixed in giant machines bolted to the floors of brick-and-mortar factories, the industrial culture that emerged in various places at various moments had an aura of permanence, durability, and heritage....."

Panorama drawn from the top of the silos of the 
"Mungo Scott Flour Mills, Summer Hill" 
2010 charcoal, ink and gouache on paper 118 x 118cm

The Operations of these flour mills have been transferred to Picton, on the periphery of the south western suburbs, about 2 years ago. Now this mill will be redeveloped into an apartment complex similar to other former mills in Dulwich Hill and Newtown.

"Forging chisels (Drawing down), 
'Wrought Artworks' Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 
2011 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm

Enquiries about similar paintings

"Working people saw in the decline of this industrial order the dissolution of their society, culture, and way of life, and the betrayal of their trust by those whose decisions shaped their fate."

Related posts

Power
"May close without warning" Solo Exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery
Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2
White Bay Power Station : Inside Out
Power House
"May close without warning" Part 3- Meet the artist
Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station 

"May close without warning" My Solo Exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery

A Sneak preview of some of the paintings

in my new solo exhibition

at the Frances Keevil Gallery

11 - 30 OCTOBER 2011
To be opened by Dr Jack Mundey AO
Tuesday 11 October, 6 - 8pm
Bay Village, 28 - 34 Cross Street Double Bay NSW 2028
ph: 02 9327 2475
Gallery hours: Mon to Fri: 10-5 Sat: 10-4 Sun: 11-4

My new exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery, is about the transience of the built environment. Many of the paintings were inspired by the now demolished Cruise Ship Terminal at the South end of Barangaroo.

"Wharf Skeleton" 2008 charcoal on paper 76 x 110cm
WINNER: 2008 DRAWING PRIZE ROYAL EASTER SHOW
Enquiries about this painting

"Miller's Point from the top of the Sydney Harbour Control Tower"

charcoal, ink, gouache on paper 121 x 134cm

SOLD
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A large, complex and vertigo inducing drawing, "Miller's Point from the top of the Sydney Harbour Control Tower", tested my draughtsmanship and perspective skills to the utmost.

'"May open without warning"'

2010 oil on canvas 51 x 76 cm

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"May open without warning" is the cryptic inscription on the floor of the entrance to the loading dock and is the first painting in this series.

"May Close Without Warning",

Wharf 8, Barangaroo

oil on canvas 51 x 76cm

Enquiries about this painting

"May close without warning" , the second painting in this series, painted from deeper inside the building, derives its title from the warning signs on the fire doors inside Wharf 8. The empty chair was a haunting symbol of the loss of power and authority as the surrounding area is in a state of flux.

"I saw the number "8" in red" oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about other paintings of Barangaroo
SOLD

 

"I saw the number "8" in red" was painted in the Arrivals Hall. Apart from commemorating the startlingly weird giant number "8", the title of this painting is also my homage to the 1928 Charles Demuth painting "I saw the number 5 in gold..", an icon of American Modernism.

"Your days are numbered" 2010
oil painting on canvas 61 x 91cm
Enquiries about other paintings of Barangaroo
SOLD
"Your days are numbered" shows the Arrivals Hall from a different angle.

'Red Square' oil on canvas 36 x 36cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings

'Red Square (Strange Customs)'

oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about this painting

'Red Square' shows the eerily empty Departures Hall with the strange bright red box at the end of the Hall, which marked where the passengers would leave the hall for the gantry. The large canvas was intended as the counterpart to "I saw the number "8" in red", which is the same size and format.

"Your days are numbered - Eight (ate)"

2010 oil painting on canvas 31 x 25 cm

SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings

"Your days are numbered - Eight (ate)" was painted after the demolition of the main building of Wharf 8.

The lonely numeral remained as a vestige of the former wharf for a few weeks afterwards.

"The 'Hungry Mile' " 2007 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm
Enquiries about this painting

"The 'Hungry Mile' ", "The empty wharf" and the "Gathering Storm" are three large canvases of the same size and format painted from a similar vantage point, several years apart to show the contrast between past and present. They are like a time lapse sequence showing the transition of the 'Hungry Mile' from a working port into the construction site of Barangaroo.
"The 'Hungry Mile' ", the first of the series, is the working port in its last operational year, 2007.

"The empty wharf" 2008

oil on canvas 91 x 122cm

Enquiries about this painting

"The empty wharf" I started painted this work the day after the stevedores left in mid October 2007 and completed it just before Cardinal began to demolish the wharf buildings at the start of 2008.

 

"The Gathering Storm" -

my unfinished plein air painting at Barangaroo,

91 x 122cm

Enquiries about this painting

I don't normally like showing half finished work, but I couldn't resist this. "The Gathering Storm" looks as though a piece of the sky has actually fallen down onto the waiting canvas.

"The Gathering Storm over Barangaroo"

2011 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm

Enquiries about this painting

I am primarily a plein air painter, and I want to rescue this genre from being relegated to the category of the "Sunday" painter.

To paint a series of large, ambitious and complex canvases "en plein air" on demolition sites and operational wharves, usually in a howling gale, could be classed as an extreme sport.

It needs physical strength, determination and a touch of insanity as well.

All of these paintings, and more will be available for sale

at the Frances Keevil Gallery from Tuesday 11th October 2011.

Enquiries info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

Related Posts

There goes the neighbourhood

Banners, Millers Point

Eaten by robots

Barangaroo - Tabula Rasa

The Last of the Hungry Mile

Tie a yellow ribbon