Sign of the Palisade

The Hotel Palisade was closed in 2008, just after the World Youth day celebrations and spent seven years in hibernation.

MP7 Sign of the Palisade 2014
acrylic on canvas 10 x 10cm
Available for sale

During its long sleep, many locals worried that the Palisade would never reopen, and would end up as apartments like so many other historic buildings, but it reopened in 2015, appropriately just in time for its 100th birthday.

MP39 'Sign of the Palisade' 
2014 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Available for sale

The renovations added a rooftop cocktail bar boasting sweeping 360 degree views of the Harbour, Millers Point and Barangaroo, as well as a new main bar and boutique accommodation.

I'm not a personal fan of the blocky design of the new roof, which to me spoilt the line of the original roof-top design, but at least it's not too obtrusive from ground level.

I'm so used to seeing it from a bird's eye view from the top floor of the Harbour Control Tower, which has been my studio for well over a decade.

Although a waterfront pub, it wasn't the pub of choice for the smarter wharfies - at least not since 1972 when the Harbour Control Tower was built, anyway, for the good reason that being directly opposite the Harbour Tower, the HarbourMaster had an excellent view of the comings and goings of any stevedores that might have clocked off early for a long liquid lunch. Moreton's (aka 'The Big House') where Sussex Street becomes Hickson Road, was overshadowed by the escarpment below High Street, and there was an entrance to the Lord Nelson in Kent street that also wasn't able to be overlooked. The entrance of the Hero of Waterloo in Lower Fort Street also wasn't visible to any sticky beaks in the eye in the sky.

The Hotel Palisade is now a seven-storey masonry building banded with strips of sandstone. There is a basement, five storeys of rooms and the new roof-top enclosed bar and terrace.

MP39 'Sign of the Palisade' 

2014 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available for sale

This small canvas, painted 'en plein air' just before the re-opening, features the iconic name plate which is attached to the parapet. I'm fascinated by the way that the "is" of the Palisade sign is enclosed inside a sandstone vignette, while the rest of the word is painted on the brick facade.

Related Posts

Millers Point from the top of the Harbour Control Tower

My page of Millers Point Paintings

The Last of the Hungry Mile

Illuminated manuscripts and stained glass windows- Painting the Dunlop - Slazenger factory Part 2

The graffiti inside the abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite remember what it was.

'Abandoned Dunlop-Slazenger factory
Soda panorama' 2015
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm 
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The walls are rich in texture, vibrant in colour and elaborate in detail.

They are possibly full of hidden meanings, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, or it could be just random doodling.

'Abandoned Dunlop-Slazenger factory
Soda panorama' 2015
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm 
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The calligraphy is cursive and the chunky letters are interlocked like links in a chain, making the words hard to read yet hypnotic to look at.

'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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There is a "horror vacui" - blank space isn't tolerated and won't last long.
Images are scattered throughout the factory, but the text dominates and has become imagery in its own right.

'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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The letters are outlined in black, often with highlights of white or red on the ascenders (the parts of letters such as "h" "b" or "d" that extend above the line)  or descenders (the parts of letters such as "g" "q" or "j" that extend below the line).

Occasionally backgrounds of gold or silver add a bit more bling and some are even adorned with star bursts.

'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm

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John Paul, the demolisher who had given me the heads up about the site, finally nailed it.

The Book of Kells, he said. (John Paul is Irish!)

To be sure, to be sure!

 Detail of 'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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This is a close up of my painting of the graffiti on left hand wall, and you can see that John Paul really had a point.

In another context, I could easily imagine one of the letters as a historiated initial in a medieval illuminated manuscript.

A historiated initial is an enlarged letter at the beginning of a text, which contains a picture.

Detail of 'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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This is a closeup detail of my painting of the graffiti in one of the small rooms to the left hand side.

This font is dramatically serif (there is a large difference between thick and thin lines) and is extravagantly embellished with finials( tapered or curved ends), swashes (extended  decorative flourishes)and lachrymals (teardrop shapes).

 Detail of 'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory
'Soda' panorama'  2015  oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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Many different hands have been at work here, overlapping and adding marginalia, drolleries and the odd obscenity.

 "Soda" has been written in a more "slab serif" style, where there is less difference between thick and thin lines.

This tag stands out from its neighbours due to its cleaner font as well as its striking silver, black and pink colour scheme.

 Detail of windows in 'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory
- 'Soda' panorama'  2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm  
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And what could go better with illuminated manuscripts, than stained glass windows?

These windows are very stained indeed.

The graffiti is probably much older than on the walls, as they would have only been accessible when the building still had a roof, which was at least a couple of years ago.

There is no lead separating the colours, however, being a factory, the windows were made from glass strengthened by an internal diamond grid of wiremesh. Breaks in the glass add spiderweb patterns.

'Abandoned Dunlop - Slazenger factory -
 'Soda' panorama'   2015 
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm                                       
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At sunset the window colours are reflected on the ground in a series of rainbows, an effect I last experienced visiting Chartres cathedral.

Related posts

'Palimpsest - Painting Dunlop - Slazenger factory' Part 1

The triumph of the machines

In early April 2015 I was asked to paint some of the last manual port movements at the Patrick terminal in Port Botany.
Now the containers are still being unloaded by port workers, but automated straddle cranes stack the containers onto trucks, replacing many port workers.
I was permitted to paint and set up my easel a week before the April change-over.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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My viewpoint was from a narrow balcony above a 2 storey gatehouse.

On the ground floor was the First Aid room, while on the top floor, port workers facing redundancy were receiving career advice.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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From my vantage point I could see the yard being prepared for the new automated system.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm
oil on canvas 2015
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In the centre, concrete barriers were arranged in grids to separate the trucks from the construction.

To the right, the giant stacks of containers were removed, leaving an eerily empty yard.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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To the left is the new observation tower, as yet unmanned, where the new Autostrads will be controlled by radar.

Painting a panorama of Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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At night it looked desolate and lonely. 

As the new driverless vehicles are remotely controlled, there won't be the same requirement for lighting the yard.

Painting the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
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At the moment, the giant straddle cranes are still operating with drivers.

Painting the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
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One day the giant straddle cranes and even the trucks may become driverless.

Paintings of Port Botany
Left to right: the giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
75 x 100cm oil on canvas 2015
 giant straddle cranes  Port Botany
100 x 75cm oil on canvas 2015
Night panorama straddle cranes  Port Botany
31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
 Port Botany panorama 31 x 153cm oil on canvas 2015
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I know that it's all in the name of efficiency, but when I left, it looked like a ghost town.

Night,containers,  Port Botany 25 x 31cm oil on canvas 2015
Night, Port Botany panorama 20 x 40cm oil on canvas 2015
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As the last ship before the changeover was unloaded, a line formed of the old straddle cranes which were due to be scrapped soon after.

Night,containers, Port Botany

25 x 31cm oil on canvas 2015

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 Ominously, while I was painting in my temporary gatehouse studio, I had met some of the same people both delivering and receiving career advice 7 years earlier when the East Darling Harbour Wharves  closed down to become Barangaroo.

PB2 'Anatoma, Port Botany' 2015 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
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A few weeks after my stint as 'Artist in Residence' at Port Botany, some of the port workers who had received redundancy, were called back to work when some of the robots malfunctioned and dropped a few containers in the water!

Related Posts

A last look at the Harbour Control Tower

Another one bites the dust

Related articles

Sydney's Patrick terminal goes automated, with fewer staff but dancing robots (smh.com.au)

Port Botany's automated machines could attract M&A suitors, says Asciano CEO (theage.com.au)

Open House

A not very architecturally distinguished housing commission in the hinterland of Glebe/Ultimo was being demolished in 2011. 
I jumped the fence and painted some small plein air canvases while it was being demolished.

 "Half demolished apartment block
in Cowper Street Glebe/Ultimo"
2011 oil on canvas 15 x 15cm
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The 'Mirragang' at first sight looks quite presentable, until the lack of glass in the windows hints at something not quite right....

'Open Plan'  -half demolished apartment block 

in Cowper Street Glebe/Ultimo"
2011 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm
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The shell of the 'Mirragang' apartments on the left, and the 'Mirrabooka' on the right, frame the handsome dark brick building in the centre.

This former wool bond store, the Farmers and Graziers No 2 Store, was the last of the great bond stores, and replaced a swath of houses in 1936. The low-lying swampy area of Glebe and Ultimo has always been known for cheap and often nasty housing.

 From the 1850s onwards, a jumble of workshops, slaughter yards, boiling-down works and other scrappy industries sprang up around the noxious waters of Blackwattle Creek. Cramped cottages without water or sewerage, were erected by landlords for the working poor. People lived cheek by jowl with domestic animals. Refuse and offal from the slaughter yards often remained to rot on the mudflats. The abattoirs provided the bones to be burnt in the Char Tower of the CSR Distillery, which were used to filter sugar. And all of the residue was pumped right back into the Blackwattle Creek.

However uninspired these redbrick tower blocks looked, they were a vast improvement on their predecessors.

Mind you, that wouldn't have been hard.

Almost anything would have been.

 'Open House' -
2011 oil on canvas 25 x 20cm
Available
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The patch of sky behind the half-demolished windows gives a feeling of a stage set.
These 15 public housing apartment blocks in Cowper Street, Glebe, were demolished by the state Labor government in 2011, resulting in the eviction of 130 tenants. Although new housing on the site was promised, to be funded by the proceeds of money raised by the sale of 99-year leases to Millers Point terraces, the land was left vacant for years as a development application was lodged and contested in court.
The O'Farrell cabinet approved construction plans for 153 public housing units, 95 affordable housing units and 247 private apartments on the site in 2013.

Now the Baird government has finally announced plans to rebuild this demolished public housing estate on Cowper Street as a mixed private, public and affordable housing community.

Related Posts

Brewers droop

Vivid

I have an exhibition of paintings inspired by 'Vivid' now on display at the Four Seasons Hotel, 199 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney.

This hotel is almost 'Vivid Headquarters'.

It is only 100 metres from the best vantage points to view the spectacular lighting the sails of the Opera House, and the facade of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

'Vivid - Sydney Harbour Bridge  from Lavender Bay (Rainbow lights)' 2015 oil on canvas 102 x 200cm
SOLD
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Brett Whiteley often painted the magnificent view from Lavender Bay. 

It looks even better at night, however I don't think that many other artists have painted nocturnes of Sydney Harbour.

'Vivid - Lighting the Sails-Luna Park on the Opera House'

2015 oil on canvas 152 x 122cm

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Of all the images projected onto the sails of the Opera House, my favourite would be Luna Park.
It revives memories of the cheeky imagery by Martin Sharp, Peter Kingston and other larrikin ratbag artists who revered and helped defend Luna Park.

Painting inspired by Vivid festival hanging
in the Four Seasons Hotel in The Rocks Sydney -
From left to right :
'Vivid - Lighting the Sails-Luna Park on the Opera House'
2015 oil on canvas 152 x 122cm
'Fireship' oil on paper 136 x 112cm
'Fireship' oil on canvas 61 x 91cm

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The angle of the lighting on the painting has cast a faint rainbow as a halo above the span of the Bridge.

See more at the Ultimate Art Gallery
Four Seasons Hotel Sydney
199 George St, Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
P.O Box 1347, Crows Nest NSW 2065
Phone: +61 (4) 35 844 347
Email: info@ultimateart.com.au

Related Posts

In the shadow of the Bridge - Night Observatory Hill

Painting the International Fleet Review Part 2