Eveleigh Community Heritage Day

The ATP Heritage Community Days run from 10am to 3pm on both Friday 16th and Saturday 17th May 2014.

This is a preview of some of the paintings I will display in the Blacksmith's workshop Bay 1 and 2 

 "ATP" is the acronym for the Australian Technology Park.

Not to be confused with Carriageworks! 

"3801 steaming, Large Erecting Shop,
Eveleigh Railway Workshops"
 2006 oil on canvas 36 x 28cm
Enquiries

The ATP is on the southern side of  Redfern station, while Carriageworks is on the northern side.
I will also have some paintings of the 3801 and other historic steam locomotives as well as interiors of the Large Erecting Shop exhibited in and around the heritage carriages. 

These carriages will be displayed by the volunteers of the 3801 at the western end, near Channel 7's new building.

'Geoff and the 3801 
outside the Large Erecting Shop'
2006  oil on canvas  38 x 76cm
Enquiries

As well as the trains, I've even immortalized a few of the volunteers!

 'Forging,Wrought Artworks '
2010 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
Enquiries

I will also be painting the blacksmiths from "Wrought Artworks", who will be giving a couple of forging demonstrations in Bay 2 south on both days. 

"Forge, Wrought Artworks, Eveleigh"
2008  oil on canvas 56 x 76cm
Enquiries

In the centre of this painting is the legendary 'Davy Press', built in the era when industry operated on a heroic scale.

Richard Butcher,heritage volunteer and an ex- Eveleigh Workshop Blacksmith, will give tours of Bay 1 and 2 (which has the enormous Davy Press). Richard has written the most amazing book about the Eveleigh Railway Workshops and is a genuine living legend!
More details about the Eveleigh Community heritage days

Related posts

Irons in the fire
Watching the forge fires fadePlaying with fire
Macdonaldtown - A Station without a suburb
Strike while the iron is hot
Eveleigh- Industrial Heritage Artist at Work
ATP Open Day - Saturday, 25 Feb 2012
 Eveleigh paintings
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)

Under the Hammer

Before the Navy finally booted me off Garden Island, I made sure that I tackled some large scale drawings
Since 2007, due to real or perceived safety issues, temporary catch platforms have been suspended from the long arm and short arm jibs. They spoil the line, but apparently provide access to allow condition inspections to be performed safely.
At first glance, it looks as though the Hammerhead Crane has 5 legs.
However, one of these "legs" is a lift to give access from the wharf to the slew ring level (seen in the centre at the top of my drawing). As the crane is 61m high, this wasn't an idle luxury.
Unfortunately this lift has been out of operation since 1998.

While drawing this, I met probably the last person to have ever used the lift. He was escorting a group of photographers to the top, and had pressed the lift button when he heard a muffled explosion, and then found his hands were black with graphite.

He said that he was lucky and got off lightly. I think he was right.

'Under the Hammerhead Crane' 2014
ink, pastel, charcoal,graphite on paper 140 x 110cm
WINNER : 2014 DRAWING PRIZE ROYAL EASTER SHOW
Enquiries

My hands were also black with graphite after creating this enormous drawing.
I stood directly underneath and looked up into the top of the soaring structure.
By looking up I sought to capture the Burke and Longinus concept of the "sublime", with its overtones of awe, terror and vertigo, rather than the picturesque aspect of the typical "hammerhead" profile, a view familiar from Mrs Macquarie's Chair opposite.
The girders were silhouetted against the open sky; the safety nets resembling fan vaulting in a ruined Gothic abbey.

While creating this enormous drawing, I also remembered Piranesi's devastating images of Roman ruins, dangerously broken and overgrown amid the wreckage of a dead civilization.

 GIHC7 'Under the Hammerhead Crane'
2014 ink pastel charcoal on paper 76 x 56cm

Enquiries

I am an artist and historian, born into a time and place where only sport and business are valued. Drawing on the ruins of the industrial past , walking under rusty girders in the shadow of toppled giants.

Every ruin is implicitly a reminder that all things are destined for oblivion.

The Hammerhead Crane was built to demonstrate industrial might and the march of progress.

Even as a victim of the slow death of de-industrialization, it retains a poignant grandeur.

This was exhibited in my solo show "Under the Hammer" at the Frances Keevil Gallery from November 18th - December 7th 2014.

Related Posts

Hammerhead Crane

Patina - Beautiful Decay

Rust never sleeps : Painting the Hammerhead Crane Part 2

Painting the Icebreaker "Polar Star"

Related articles

"inheritance"- Post "Hammerhead Crane-Garden Island under threat"

"Inheritance" Post - Navy Fleet Review- an opportunity missed

Another one bites the dust

Starting a large panorama on Sunday 30th March about 10am

"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo

from High Street, Millers Point" 

2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about this painting :

janecooperbennett@gmail.com

I have spent most of the past week painting a large panoramic canvas to show the Harbour Control Tower from High Street in Millers Point.

On the far left hand side is a view of the Barangaroo construction site, with giant chunks of recently excavated yellowblock sandstone forming a pseudo-naturalistic cove. 

On the far right hand side, the workers cottages of High Street stare down disapprovingly onto their brash new neighbour. 

In the centre of the picture is the last bastion of the Hungry Mile, the mushroom topped column of the Harbour Control Tower.

 Monday 31st March about 1pm

"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo

from High Street, Millers Point" 

2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about this painting :

janecooperbennett@gmail.com

The Harbour Tower was also jokingly known as ''the Pill" because it "controlled all the berths" in the harbour. According to the National Trust, it should be conserved and reused as it symbolizes more than 200 years of shipping in Sydney.

However, this is an unlikely fate, as the Barangaroo Delivery Authority then bought the concrete, steel and glass structure from Sydney Ports for $2.6 million. 

Despite its unsurpassed 360 degree harbour views, the Harbour Control Tower quite obviously doesn't fit into their vision for Barangaroo, so its days are numbered.

Tuesday 1st April about 11am

"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo

from High Street, Millers Point"

2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about this painting :

janecooperbennett@gmail.com

Sydney Ports once manned it 24/7, but it has not been operational since April 11th 2011, when vessel control services for Sydney Harbour finally moved to Port Botany.

 Wednesday 2nd April about 11am

"Harbour Control Tower and Barangaroo

from High Street, Millers Point"

2014 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm

Enquiries about this painting :

janecooperbennett@gmail.com

The tower opened in 1974 to give Harbour Control the best possible views of the harbour to ensure safe passage for thousands of ships each year. The architectural drawings and plans for its construction used to be hung in the foyer of the amenities level, just in front of the lift, until some light fingered wharfie pinched them.

'Evening Harbour Control Tower

from Moore's Wharf' 2013
oil on canvas 178 x 122cm

This is my huge canvas painted from my Moore's Wharf studio, showing the last time that the gorgeous sandstone escarpment was completely visible.

It has by now totally disappeared under a layer of scaffolding and the retaining wall for the North Barangaroo Headland Park.

The park will slope from its soi disant naturalistic 1788 coastline up to Clyne Reserve and Merriman street. Obviously the Tower will get short shrift. It is an emblem of another era and different values.

It looks as though Precision Demolition will be getting more work!

I last caught their act at Port Kembla, where they lived up to their name, neatly and precisely dropping the Port Kembla Copper Stack onto the grounds of Port Kembla Copper. Previously I had met them during the saga of the sinking of ex-HMAS Adelaide.

I am surprised, and more than a little concerned, that as the demolition of the Harbour Control Tower was virtually a foregone conclusion, that it wasn't demolished before construction of the headland was so far advanced. However neatly they drop it, it would make a bit of a dent in the painstakingly arranged faux natural headland. Unless they are planning to leave the pieces there as a giant water feature or a Brutalist concrete novelty sundial in the centre of the park. 

It would certainly be a conversation piece.

Or perhaps the charming terraces of Merriman Street are also superfluous to their requirements?

There's no accounting for taste.

'The Shipping News - Last  view of interior

of Harbour Control Tower '
 2011 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm

Enquiries about this painting :

janecooperbennett@gmail.com

I had been "Artist in Residence" in the Harbour Control Tower by Sydney Ports Corporation for nearly a decade.

This is the final view of the interior of the top floor. The whiteboard has a list of the very last shipping movements on April the last operational day of the Harbour Control Tower.

The clock has stopped at 10.44am, Tuesday 24th May, and has been left that way.

After the last operational use of the Tower, maintenance staff had to still have access to be able to remove furniture, cables and other equipment. If I arrived early enough, I would be allowed to tag along and do a bit more painting. 

My very last visit was just before its eventual demolition.

Related posts

Paintings of the Harbour Control Tower

Paintings from the Top of the Harbour Control Tower

Painting the Port Kembla Copper Stack

Painting ex-HMAS Adelaide

Another city landmark gets the brush-off 

March 31 2014 Sydney Morning Herald  Nicole Hasham

Beyond the Sea

Millers point paintings

Tie a yellow ribbon

The last of the Hungry Mile

May close without warning

From the Tampa to Strictly Ballroom

I'll write a few posts about some of the paintings on display at my exhibition of Pyrmont paintings in the members lounge of the Australian National Maritime Museum.
The first two paintings on the left hand wall of the room as you enter, were both painted from the roof of the half demolished Pyrmont Power Station a couple of years apart. I was very pleased that I was able to place these together so that viewers can understand the stages of development of this area of Pyrmont.

P103 "From the roof of Pyrmont Power Station" 

1994 oil/canvas 92 x 122 cm 

Enquiries about these paintings

I was "Artist in Residence" at the Pyrmont Power Station for over a decade. At the time of painting these 2 works, it was partially demolished, yet still functional, and served the western side of the CBD as a source for power and lighting. It has now been replaced by Star City Casino.
The rhythmic sweeping lines curving under the bridge are remnants of the old Pyrmont goods line.This was once part of the former Metropolitan Goods Line. There was a goods line from Darling Harbour to Central that had been in existence from about 1856, but a loop line that completed a circuitous route of the inner suburbs became necessary when heavy industry expanded in the early 20th century. Diverging at Dulwich Hill it headed north beneath the Main Suburban line at Summer Hill to Lilyfield before heading east to Rozelle and Pyrmont, and then south under Railway Square through NSW's oldest tunnel to join the Main Suburban line outside Central. This line served the ports at Glebe Island (diverging via a spur from Lilyfield) and Darling Harbour and was approved on 23 November 1914, and the line was finally opened on 23 January 1922. The Darling Island/Darling Harbour section had 19km of track.
The John Street tunnel, a 124m double-track tunnel cut deep into the sandstone under Pyrmont Point, is still in use for the light rail.
During the 1970s and 1980s Darling Harbour traffic reduced considerably and the yards officially closed in October 1984. At vast expense, this goods line was torn up in June 1993 and replaced by the dubious benefit of light rail. Much of the trackbed was used for the light rail that opened to Wentworth Park in August 1997 and extended to Lilyfield in August 2000.
The pile of rubble in the centre marks where an old signal box in the Pyrmont Goods Yard had been just demolished. It was immortalized as the “Spanish café” in Baz Luhrmann's 1992 classic film “Strictly Ballroom”. One person’s eyesore is another’s urban icon.

The brilliant vermilion ship was the “MV Tampa”! It wasn’t notorious then!

The “Tampa” was an early Mark 1 “ConRo” ( roll-on/roll-off container ship) completed in 1984 by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. in South Korea for the Norway based firm, then known as the “Barber Line” and later the “Wallenius Wilhelmsen Line”. It was extensively refurbished and another deck added before it was involved in the controversial event in August 2001 known afterwards as the "Tampa affair".

That wasn't the last scandal involving the MV Tampa.
In October 2006, MV Tampa was one of two Wilhelmsen ships involved in a cocaine-smuggling operation intercepted by the New Zealand Customs Service and the Australian Federal Police. Allegedly 27 kilograms of cocaine had been attached in purpose-built metal pods to the side of the 2 cargo ships bound for Australia. However the New Zealand authorities stated they did not believe the ship's crew or owners were involved.
At the time of this painting Jones Bay Road continued up to the land bridge which then bisected Darling Island and looped around the lower level of Darling Island
All of Jones Bay Road has since been renamed Pirrama Road except for a strange little stub of a street opposite Star Casino. Jones Bay Road used to loop around the whole peninsula, but now the entire street is only about 100 metres long, stretching from the Australian Thermite building ("Darling Island Bond and Free") on the corner at 12 Pyrmont Street, to an apartment block and the 2SM building on the corner of the escarpment.

P214 "Sydney Harbour from the top of the Pyrmont Power Station(building Star Casino)"

1997 oil/board 40 x 89 cm 

Enquiries about these paintings

In the early 1980s,when I first started to paint in Pyrmont, the brick building on the right hand side of this painting was the site of Pier 13, where so many immigrants first set foot on Australian soil. Pier 13 was still connected to Jones Bay Road by a land bridge. By the date of this painting, Pier 13 had been painted a gob-smackingly hideous shade of yellow and became first a dodgy carpet shop and later the equally dodgy temporary casino. As you can see, the land bridge has by now been demolished.
Pier 13 has since been replaced by 'Workplace 6', home of 'Google' and Paul Signorelli's restaurants 'Gastronomia' and 'Biaggio'.
The empty space in the centre of Darling Island has since been filled with offices and apartments, which ironically have been given wharf-like styling. Most of the real wharves had been demolished in the 1980s-1990s.

Related posts

Culture of the Suburbs - Pyrmont Paintings

Not the Writers Festival

Pyrmont paintings past and present -My Exhibition in the Australian National Maritime Museum

Pyrmont paintings past and present- My Exhibition in the Australian National Maritime Museum

Yesterday, today and tomorrow in Pyrmont.
I've been invited to exhibit a selection of 15 of my Pyrmont paintings in the members' lounge of the Australian National Maritime Museum.
This exhibition will still be on display throughout the annual Pyrmont festival in May, which culminates in a 2 day celebration of Art, Wine and Food in Pirrama Park, on the weekend of Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th May 2014.

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings
in the members lounge of the

Australian National Maritime Museum

Enquiries about these paintings

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings
in the members lounge of the
Australian National Maritime Museum
Enquiries about these paintings

As usual, I will be exhibiting my smaller canvases and paintings on wood panels at the Park itself, however this display in the members lounge has given me a wonderful opportunity to show work that is impossible to display outdoors in the festival, such as works on paper framed under glass.

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings
in the members lounge of the
Australian National Maritime Museum
Enquiries about these paintings

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings in the

members lounge of the

Australian National Maritime Museum

Enquiries about these paintings

This is a view of the exhibition from the most comfy sofa in the middle of the members lounge.

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings
in the members lounge of the
Australian National Maritime Museum

My exhibition of Pyrmont paintings
in the members lounge of the
Australian National Maritime Museum

This quick sketch of the rooftops of the CSR Refinery and the Glebe Island swing bridge is hung behind the reception desk.

I drew this from the top of the CSR Boilerhouse several years before the Anzac Bridge was built.

P97B "Tumbledown cottage, 95 Pyrmont st (now demolished)"
1994 ink/paper 22 x 30 cm
P31 "Jones Bay Wharf, 1" 1997 ink/paper 30.5 x 40.5 cm
O21 "Pyrmont, looking west from Observatory Hill"
1989 gouache/paper 34 x 75 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

HCT13 "The 'Southern Cross' from the Harbour Control Tower 2007
gouache/paper 30 x 50 cm
Enquiries about these paintings
This is the most recent image of Pyrmont in this exhibition, although by now the wharf in the foreground has been completely demolished to make way for the controversial Barangaroo development.
My studio in the control room of the Harbour Tower gave me a 360 degree birds eye view of Sydney Harbour, so this is a very unfamiliar aspect of the Pyrmont peninsula.

P120 "Jones Bay Wharf" 2000 pastel/paper 76 x 56 cm
P90 "CSR Sunset" 1998 oil/canvas 61 x 91 cm
P91 "CSR Refinery" 1994 acrylic/paper 76 x 56 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

P90 "CSR Sunset" 1998 oil/canvas 61 x 91 cm
P91 "CSR Refinery" 1994 acrylic/paper 76 x 56 cm
Enquiries about these paintings
Two views of the CSR Refinery, which is now the Jackson's Landing development.

P80 "Pyrmont Power Station from Mill St 1"
1991 mixed media/paper 76 x 56 cm
P35 "Pyrmont Bond Stores
(‘Darling Island Bond and Free’ 12 Pyrmont st)"
1996 ink/paper 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Enquiries about these paintings
Two evocative ink and wash drawings are hung at the end corner of the room.
The glitzy Star Casino has now replaced the brooding ruins of the Pyrmont Power Station.
However, in contrast the bond store at no. 12 Pyrmont street, known as "Darling Island Bond and Free" has changed so little that I can't believe that nearly 2 decades has passed since I drew this moody ink and wash sketch.

P90 "CSR Sunset" 1998 oil/canvas 61 x 91 cm
P91 "CSR Refinery" 1994 acrylic/paper 76 x 56 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

HCT13 "The 'Southern Cross' from the Harbour Control Tower "
2007 gouache/paper 30 x 50 cm
P120 "Jones Bay Wharf" 2000 pastel/paper 76 x 56 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

P36 "Ways Terrace from Lower Jones Bay Road"
1993 ink/paper 31 x 41 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

P103 "From the roof of Pyrmont Power Station
1994 oil/canvas 92 x 122 cm

P214 "Sydney Harbour from the top of the

Pyrmont Power Station(building Star Casino)"

1997 oil/board 40 x 89 cm
Enquiries about these paintings
The red ship in the background is the notorious ‘Tampa’, painted several years before the refugee incident.

P97B "Tumbledown cottage, 95 Pyrmont st (now demolished)"
1994 ink/paper 22 x 30 cm
P31 "Jones Bay Wharf, 1" 1997 ink/paper 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Enquiries about these paintings

P92 "Industrial Cathedral 2" (‘Cooperage’, CSR Refinery)

1998 oil/canvas 92 x 61 cm

P97B "Tumbledown cottage, 95 Pyrmont st

(now demolished)" 1994 ink/paper 22 x 30 cm

P31 "Jones Bay Wharf, 1" 1997 ink/paper 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Enquiries about these paintings
An added bonus is that the Australian National Maritime Museum is very close to the sites where most of my paintings were created, so the viewers only have to step outside for a moment to grasp how much the landscape of the inner city suburb of Pyrmont has changed over the last 30 years.
Glimpses of Pyrmont's half forgotten industrial past can still be discerned through the manicured lawns and towers of high rise, but only if you know exactly what to look for.

Related posts

See interview at "Visit Pyrmont/Ultimo" website

2012 Classic and Wooden Boat Show- Australian National Maritime Museum

Wrong side of the tracks

If you enjoy my Pyrmont paintings please contact me or the Frances Keevil Gallery.