In 2021 I resolved to confront my reluctance to explore painting as a medium. As part of a first-year painting unit I produced two oil paintings. The first a tribute to Lloyd Rees' The Road to Berry and the second
My still life continues my exploration of the artistic legacy I have inherited and the mixed feelings of absence but presence I feel when thinking about my ancestors
The starting point for my work is a simple earthenware jug. My grandfather bought it when he was in Paris in 1923 with the Queensland sculptor Daphne Mayo. The jug remains in the family. My grandfather used the jug as a subject for a number of still-life paintings in the 1920’s including My Paris Jug (1924).
The jug and painting form the basis of a collection of objects related to still life and my grandfather. I have included a jar with brushes and tubes of paints he used just before his death in 1987 together with an apple from our tree. Michael Nay used a similar approach with his collages of unremarkable objects collected over a lifetime.
My photograph of my grandfather’s studio in 2017 completes the collection. The empty chair is often used as a metaphor to reflect on the absence and presence of a person. Samuel Fildes used it in his painting of Dicken’s library shortly after his death as did van Gogh in his paintings of Gauguin and van Gogh’s chairs propelling a familiar object beyond the realm of still life so that it comes to represent the artist himself.
My painting is on a canvas of similar but larger proportions to My Paris Jug. I used acrylic paints for the blocking in and underpainting before switching to oil. I left the My Paris Jug element of the composition in acrylic to invoke a sense of a different time.
