Artwork Produced While Living at West Beach,
Before My First Solo Exhibition (1982 - 1983)

In July 1982, I moved to Adelaide from Sydney, where I grew up. I had come to Adelaide to explore producing my own artwork. I was going to live off my savings, after working in Sydney. Adelaide offered cheaper living expenses, and more consistent weather conditions than Sydney. I firstly stayed with my older brother, Ross, who had moved to Adelaide about 12 months before, for his work. After a few weeks, I found my own accommodation, in a granny flat behind a house at West Beach, on the coast.

The area around my accommodation proved to be rich for landscape ideas, but this was also probably because of my attitude as well.

Following are small images of the twenty-four artworks selected for this display.

Click on an image, or its title, to go to a page with proper reproductions and more details about that artwork.

Once you are looking at artworks in more detail, you can use the ‘prev’ and ‘next’ links (at the top and bottom of each details page) to go to the previous or next artworks in the monthly display respectively, or return to this monthly display overview page.

More general information about my artwork production while living at West Beach can be found below the small images.

More information about my artwork production while living at West Beach, etc.

I undertook some life drawing sessions in North Adelaide and found these good for honing my drawing skills and meeting some other artists. After about 12 months of going along to life drawing sessions, I began to dislike a number of its aspects. The main one was that the model was always having to turn herself/himself into a statue, which really isn’t a natural or comfortable thing to do for a human being. I also found that the life drawing sessions were limited by the poses imposed by the older members of the group who were responsible for organising the models. Over time, I was finding many tree trunks more interesting than the human bodies seen in the life drawing sessions (from a form point of view), and they naturally didn’t move much for years on end. I didn't have to pay trees to be my models, and I could choose the directions I wanted to draw them from, without worrying about other people.

While producing artwork at West Beach, I was often looking for an approach to painting and drawing that really suited me, suited my approach to doing things, and suited my personality. I can remember with just about every new 'major piece' I started, I felt that I may be now just starting to find that special approach. After working on each piece, I would think of another (often slightly different) approach to try.

I enjoyed painting and drawing all around the area, and found the landscape coming through as a major subject for my artwork. I was taking a large interest in the artwork of Claude Monet, and the other French Impressionist painters, who worked on-site directly from the scenes in front of them. My artwork at this time fluctuated between the understanding I had of the artwork of Vincent van Gogh as well as the artwork of Claude Monet. In reality, I worked in a largely "Impressionist" manner, painting and drawing directly from outdoors subject matter. The main focus for most of my paintings at this time was recording accurately observed colours and light. This usually meant working on the same piece at the same time of the day, and only when the weather was similar. I typically worked on about 6 to 10 pieces at the same time, having different pieces for the different times of the day. While out painting like this, I would enjoy just being outside, observing, recording and analysing. In an effort to improve the expression of what I was trying to record, I carried out a considerable amount of experimenting. I experimented with materials, with the size and shape of images, with the range of paint colours that I used for mixing, etc. I did find that working outside imposed a range of restrictions to aspects such as size of the artwork that could be conveniently transported and completed within a reasonable time. I did find that I didn't get to finish many of the paintings that I started, for one reason or another, and this is something that has persisted throughout my entire life of artwork production.

While producing artwork at West Beach, ‘presence within a landscape’ became an important quality that I wanted to try to capture and convey. I looked at reproductions of artwork by Vincent van Gogh, the Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists to see if (and if, how) this quality was captured in their artwork. I also used to regularly visit the Art Gallery of South Australia to look at real artworks (including work within a variety of exhibitions shown there) to feel how the artworks came across to me (and why). Seeing the sizes of some pieces became very important.

While living at West Beach, I produced a lot of artwork and spent considerable time thinking about many things about the world I saw and lived in. It was a highly influential and positive time in my life.

I worked well for about 15 months before wanting to exhibit my artwork. I held my first solo exhibition during November 1983. I hired a hall in North Glenelg and organised the presentation of about 50 paintings and 30 drawings, including all of the pieces shown in this month's display.

The pieces in this month's display are presented in chronological order, to the best of my memory. When I recently looked at the selection of appropriate artwork I made for this display, I realised that I no longer have the majority of the pieces selected and instead only have reproductions derived from photographs that I took relatively soon after finishing the actual pieces. I did, however, produce the vast majority of pieces at that time based on sound painting and drawing 'craft' techniques using materials of the highest quality, so I know that those pieces would have survived well for many years still. I remember looking closely at books about the use of artists' materials at the time. I still have some pieces from my times at West Beach, and they have survived well. That research into suitable materials and techniques has been invaluable for all of the artwork I have produced since living at West Beach.