Still Lives

In early 2013 we moved back to the Hills to Aldgate and converted an old shed into a studio. I again chose to continue with painting after the interlude into printmaking.

I began by doing some experimental paintings using bulbs, fabrics and laces as collages on canvas, combining the surfaces into textures for oils on canvas. These works related to the textile prints on paper I had made a decade earlier with my large etching press. I liked the possibilities of these new works and produced a small series of them as related still life studies of bottle arrangements. They were not exhibited but sold to friends and studio visitors. 

Melanie Rankin, Director of the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery saw the new paintings and invited me to work towards an exhibition in 2014 So for the next 18 months, I made a collection of 25 new paintings which were informed by previous series such as the stones, bowls, vessels and cushions with wonderful textured surfaces. These experimental works then informed the much larger collection of 'New Paintings' shown at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in 2016. The original, previous collection of 25 paintings, 'Domestic Rituals' had all been destroyed by the fire.