Peter Gardiner wins the 2011 Calleen Art Award

Congratulations to Peter Gardiner for winning the 2011 Calleen Art Award at Cowra Regional Gallery. This acquisitive prize is in its 34th year, and this year was judged by Deborah Ely, CEO of the Bundanon Trust. She had these comments about the winning work: 


"Peter Gardiner's Landscape 2010 Number VIII dips its hat to the Spanish masters Valezquez and Goya and to the traditions of landscape painting, but takes them to another place. The viewer becomes involved in a dark narrative that hints at an evolving, indecipherable, drama.  It is both frightening and contemplative. There is a strong sense of the present in its possible references to catastrophic weather and natural disasters. It is a sensational painting and will be a wonderful acquisition for the Cowra Regional Art Gallery Collection."

Peter Gardiner, Landscape VIII, oil on canvas, 210 x 180 cm

The Calleen Art Award is on at Cowra Regional Gallery until 29th May. 

James Drinkwater selected for the Salon des Refuses

A portrait by currently exhibiting gallery artist James Drinkwater has been selected for exhibition in the S.H. Ervin Gallery's Salon des Refuses. The portrait depicts artist Charles Blackman, and here James recounts the experience of their first meeting: 
I was barely eighteen when my dear friend Fred O’Brien introduced me to Charles.

I had known Charlie for all of three minutes when he lent over the table and said to me:

“Listen here boy! Drawing is wrapping a line around something you could never dream of!”

This set a quirky, somewhat gruff and honest tone for what would be many meetings over the next ten years.

Charlie is one of the country’s great painters and draughtsman and I have been fortunate enough to sit on many occasions with over dinner or a cup of tea and listen to him wax lyrical about art and history. When excited Charlie becomes animated and almost jumps out of his seat. His eyes are enchanting, mischievous and often distant and his smile can go from warm to wicked in a moment.

I have often made drawings of Charles but it’s only in the last year that have I felt ready to paint him and I am glad that I waited.

"Drawing is wrapping a line around something you could never dream of" (Portrait of Charles Blackman) 

James Drinkwater

James' exhibition at the Damien Minton Gallery continues to Saturday 16th April. The 2011Salon des Refuses is open from Saturday 16th April at S.H. Ervin Gallery.