Barangaroo - tabula rasa

Today's painting on the deck is a panorama painted on the East Darling Harbour Wharves. It includes 2 of my former studios - the Harbour Control Tower and Moore's Wharf.

The now demolished Harbour Control Tower dominates the empty wharf. A row of pink terraces perch on top of the golden sandstone escarpment
while the Sydney Harbour Bridge can be glimpsed behind Moore's Wharf, a handsome heritage sandstone building housing the Sydney Ports Corporation.

The cute little federation building on the left is a Federation era sewage pumping station. It has since been cleaned up and relocated.

BAR60 'Barangaroo north -
The Harbour Tower,
escarpment and Moore's Wharf 2'
2010 oil on canvas 38 x 76cm

This canvas was painted just after the wharves had been cleared of all their maritime infrastructure, and just before work began on the construction of the Barangaroo Headland Park that replaced it.
It shows a place in a state of limbo.
I've included a couple of photos of this and a couple of other canvases as works in progress, to show some of the process involved in their creation.
I had to lug a french box easel, paint, brushes, medium, canvases, a couple of tables, a chair, and my lunch, packed inside trolley luggage. After doing this for several decades, I've become quite fit and strong!

Plein air oil painting behind the barrier
on the East Darling Harbour Wharves
Showing this canvas as a work in progress
with my trolley luggage, table, chair, french box easel,
paints, brushes and other equipment.

Barangaroo is a paradox.
The area now known as Barangaroo was off limits to the public for over a hundred years but was the central core of Sydney's economy. Necessary, yet ignored ; in full view yet strangely invisible.

Now it is centre stage, hotly debated and fought over, yet still unknown to the vast majority of Sydney.
Once a despised slum - now prime waterfront. Only the fashion has changed...

BAR60 'Barangaroo north -
The Harbour Tower,
escarpment and Moore's Wharf 2'
2010 oil on canvas 38 x 76cm

It had a complex. fascinating multi-layered history but has been treated as though it is tabula rasa - a blank canvas for architects to impose their will upon.

Nearly 200 years of maritime heritage disappeared with barely a token gesture to its previous existence.

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Blacksmith forging in the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Today's painting on my isolation deck gallery is of one of the blacksmiths in Bay 1/2 of the Locomotive Workshops, South Eveleigh, Eveleigh Railway Workshops.

E93 Blacksmith quenching chisels,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops 2011

oil on canvas 152 x 122cm

This canvas is so large that parts of it are obscured by the railing and roof of my pergola.

However, I did paint it from life - nervously trying to keep my oil paint and turps out of the way of the blacksmiths who were swiftly carrying red-hot metre long metal chisels from the forge and quenching them in a vat of boiling oil!

As you do!

E93 Blacksmith quenching chisels,

Eveleigh Railway Workshops 2011

oil on canvas 152 x 122cm

I painted a series of blacksmith paintings from life and even exhibited them in Bay 1/2 while the blacksmiths were giving public forging demonstrations.

The blacksmiths at the time were part of 'Wrought Artworks' which had been founded by  Guido Gouvernor in 1991 just after the Eveleigh Railway Workshops ceased operations. He conserved the antique heritage machinery and kept it in working order so that they weren't static exhibits, but part of a working forge.

More recently, Matthew Mewburn of 'Eveleigh Works' has taken over this important and historically significant task.

The posts below include the stages of these paintings as works in progress on the easel, and some photos from several Open Days at the Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops.

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Time for Safety 
The slow return from the fire 
The fire within 
En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)

The Last of the Hungry Mile- Harbour Control Tower from East Darling Harbour Wharves

Today's canvas was painted from inside Wharf 4 in East Darling Harbour Wharves during the its last few weeks as a working port.

DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm

FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE

The once bustling wharf became a ghost town, as the cargo-loading infrastructure was dismantled, the 3 shore cranes were loaded onto barges for Port Kembla or Webb Dock, and anything remaining was put into storage or into a skip bin.

The wharf has now closed forever and Sydney’s traditional role as a working harbour is nearly over.
For Sydney Harbour to be stripped of its original character and purpose, was almost unthinkable.

Abandoned places have a haunting beauty.
They are points of temporary stasis in the turning world of urban change.

It was eerily silent; waiting for the demolition to start and the genesis of Barangaroo to begin.

Barangaroo is about hubris - a grand feat of ambitious central planning in search of a purpose. The vaunted economic rebirth of the area has like so much else been sent into hibernation by the Covid crisis.

DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm

FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE

The columns of light poles point towards the Harbour Control Tower, which was one of the last vestiges of the working port in the area, and was demolished a few years later.
This Port Operations and Communication Centre was a milestone in the history and operation of the Port of Sydney. The construction of the tower gave oversight of maritime operations over all the Port of Sydney for the first time.

Nestling underneath, on the escarpment is the historic Hotel Palisade, once a rough waterside early opener, now gentrified for the expected inflow of tourists to Barangaroo on the west and the revamped Walsh Bay Wharves to the north-east.

Why the Hullaballoo about Barangaroo?

"May close without warning"

The Hungry Mile  
Tie a yellow ribbon

Millers Point

The Manly bus, Sydney Bus Museum

Today on the easel of my isolation deck gallery I'm showing another from my collection of paintings created in the Sydney Bus Museum.

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

This was actually the first painting I started of the Sydney Bus Museum on my first visit in 2017, although it took me several visits to complete it.

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

It shows one of their most exciting restoration projects - the old 144 Manly bus, the 1926 'White', the first Government bus in NSW.

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

 

At that time, my family lived above their shop "Coopers" in the Corso, and my mum remembers catching this bus when she was very young. So when I saw this bus, it felt like a long lost family member!

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

The recently rebuilt drivers seat that was refurbished with a 2016 Transport Heritage NSW grant funding, has been trial fitted to the bus.

The original seat had unfortunately become rotten, so needed to be remade by the Bendigo Tramway workshops who were able to reuse the original base.

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

Robert Kendall is the master craftsman repairing the White's wooden skeleton with consummate skill.

He didn't realize it, but I was doing a sneaky portrait of him as he was so absorbed in his work!

BUS3 'Bob restoring the 1926 'White' 2017
 oil on canvas 51 x 76cm
Available

See more of my bus paintings

Sydney Bus Museum - painting Daimler doubledecker

Tie a yellow ribbon

Today's painting on the deck gallery is a streetscape of Merriman Street, Millers Point.

These colourful terraces are just next to the Barangaroo Headland Park, and at the time of painting, still lay in the shadow of the now demolished Harbour Control Tower, which actually used to have an entrance on Merriman street directly opposite the terraces in this canvas. The Palisade Hotel is just at the end of the street.

They face west and I caught them in the full light of the setting sun to enhance their faded gelato colours so reminiscent of the dilapidated charm of urban Cuba. I kept expecting to hear the Buenavista Social Club from every doorway.

They also reminded me of streetscapes by Jeffrey Smart and Edward Hopper. Behind the colourful facade is a threatening storm.

I painted this canvas 'en plein air' in 2014 during the protests of the Millers Point residents against their forced eviction from the area. 

 

MP11 'Merriman st' 2014
oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
Available

Sharp eyed viewers will be able to see yellow ribbons tied to the doors. A yellow ribbon had been used to mark a building destined for demolition, during the original Rocks clearances in the late 19th - early 20th century. The current residents adopted and repurposed this symbol to signal a building where the occupants were threatened with eviction.

MP11 'Merriman st' 2014
oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
Available

The early 20th century slum clearances in Millers Point and the Rocks were performed under the pretext of saving the city from bubonic plague. The early 21st century clearances were of the community rather than the architecture, under the guise of economic rationalism.
First the maritime workforce, then the surrounding community was dispersed.

Until recently, the inner city had been regarded as a crowded, squalid slum, so the rich flocked to the suburbs. Now this has reversed, and the poor are pushed to the periphery. The city is spoilt rotten for resources and transport, while the hinterland has been starved.

MP11 'Merriman st' 2014
oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
Available

The value of Millers Point didn’t just lie in its architecture, but in its strong community spirit and long history.

Nearly 200 years of its colourful maritime past has been swept away with barely a token gesture to its previous existence.

Since this canvas was painted, most of Millers Point has passed into private hands, and many of the workers cottages were transformed into short term rental Air B'n'B. Ironically, due to another outbreak of plague (Covid 19 this time, not bubonic) almost exactly a century later, these short term rentals are now mostly vacant and from March to mid June 2020 the Isolation restrictions turned Millers Point into a ghost town.

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In the shadow of the Bridge -Night Observatory Hill

Today's painting on the deck gallery is a nocturne painted from Observatory Hill.

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm
Available
I've often painted the Rocks and Millers Point from this vantage point.
When I used to teach art classes, I'd give everyone a map of the best spots to sit so they could avoid having to include the Blues Point Tower!

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm
Available

This view looks straight down Lower Fort Street where I have also frequently painted the heritage terraces, the Garrison church, the Harbourview and 'Hero of Waterloo' hotels.

Some of this collection are on my Miller's Point page in this blog.

It's a postcard perfect Sydney Harbour scene during the day. but at night the shadows make it evocative and mysterious.
The tales from the rowdy and sometimes sinister era of the Rocks 'Push' don't seem to be quite as distant at night!

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm

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Sydney Bus Museum - painting Daimler doubledecker

Today's painting on the deck gallery is a portrait of MTT Daimler CGV6 112 at the Sydney Bus Museum in Leichhardt. It has been under restoration to operating condition since 2016.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

It's had a rough life.

It was one of 15 Daimler doubledecker chassis ordered for use in Sydney. However they were rejected because their 4.95m chassis didn't meet the required specifications of 5,33m. 
Then they were sold to the Metropolitan Transport Service, Adelaide. The 54 seat bodies were then built in Granville, and driven overland to Adelaide.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

After being in service in Adelaide until 1960, no 112 was sold to a cattle station in the Coober Pedy area of South Australia.

In 1990 it was recovered for preservation - and driven over 1,000 miles back to Sydney!

It might have been too small, but it's tough!

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

I painted this on site in the Bus Museum at Leichhardt, and some of the volunteers are in the background.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

  

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

See more of my bus paintings

The Manly bus, Sydney Bus Museum