So after twenty years I have finally returned to my first love. Painting. Although I never strayed far away from it, always keeping it within sight in my various jobs over the years, but I never actually touched it, played with it, I just looked at it from afar… but here I am, in a new town, with a new life and new experiences and suddenly I am inspired.
This show is the culmination of the past couple of years, my first ever solo exhibition. Who would have thought it would be here in Mudgee, now and with birds as the theme for this show. Why did I chose birds you may ask? Because they were the first thing I noticed moving from the city. In the city all I noticed were only the large birds, magpies and crows, or the medium aggressive birds, the mynas and the minors (yes, they aren’t even related.) and all the little birds have vanished. Even the sparrows have gone. Out here on our bush block we have so many birds, birds I had never seen nor heard nor even heard of before.
When our neighbour and fellow artist Merilyn Burch-Carney advertised that I would be exhibiting in the Gulgong Arts Council members show 2013, I suddenly had to produce something… anything, so I went to what I had been toying with, an idea to paint bird portraits and it grew from there.
