One of my favourite things to do is to visit the NSW Art Gallery with friends to observe the annual Archibald Prize. Above are just a few of my favourite finalists, the first being the portrait I chose for the People’s Choice Award painted by Jasper Knight and the last portrait is the Archibald winner, painted by Sam Leach.
On leaving the gallery, I walked passed the Artexpress exhibition which is a dynamic and popular exhibition featuring a selection of outstanding student artworks developed for the artmaking component of the HSC examination in Visual Arts, 2009. Studying Art for the HSC you really appreciate the time, energy, blood, sweat and tears that go into these masterpieces. You work on the artworks the entire year; it almost feels like it becomes a piece of you once it is completed. I will be coming back to the Gallery next Wednesday for Art Afer Hours to check this out. Usually the standard and quality of these artworks surpasses anything you see in the Archibald so I’m really looking forward to it.
Being at the gallery last night I was flooded with memories of my painting days and how I miss it so much. As life becomes much more frantic these days I find myself using any spare time I have catching up with friends, exercising or meditating instead of painting.
So I have made point to buy some canvas and paint on the weekend and re kindle my passion for painting once again. My friend reminded me last night as we were meandering through the various portraits at the gallery, how I use to paint various flora subjects (mostly mainstream frangipanis) during University to pay for my copious amounts of overseas travel. I capitalized on the fact that most of the house- wives of Cronulla loved hanging these types of delightful paintings in their beach side homes.
Stay tuned for some happy snaps of some of my older artworks and let’s see how long it takes for me to produce some new works of art.
Xx pee-jay the painter
