About me and my work.
Born in 1952, I have been interested and involved in the arts from an early age.
Academic Qualifications:
1971 - 1974
Diploma in Art Education [dip. Art Ed.] from Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education, and the National Art sSchool, where I made it in both painting and ceramics.
Biography
1975 - 1976
Art teacher at Wagga Wagga High School.
1977
Highly commended for ‘Stone Lady’ painting at Wagga Wagga Council Art Gallery.
Selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize for ‘Portrait of Don Chipp’, leader of the Australian Democrats.
Group show at the Cottage Gallery in Wagga 1977.
1977 - 1978
Painting teacher for Adult Education Department at Riverina College of Advanced Education.
Taught painting privately.
Set designer for the Riverina trucking company, a subsidised theatre company for the Riverina College of Advanced Education.
1979 to 1981
Worked as a commercial artist for for both Grace Brothers, Pty Ltd, and News Ltd in Sydney, as well as exhibiting paintings at the Barry Stern Gallery in Sydney.
1982
Return to teaching at Kogarah high and Hurstville high school as a casual art teacher.
1983 to 1985
I gained a permanent position at Bankstown Girls High School as an art teacher.
1985 to 2012
I was awarded a transfer as an Art teacher to Coffs Harbour High School.
2004
Selected as a finalist in the Country, Energy Art prize [which no longer exists] with a painting titled ‘Coffs Coast Hinterland’. The best 10 works were selected from this exhibition and hung in the Sydney Opera House Gallery for three months in that year.
2004 - 2007
Exhibited paintings and pottery at the Lake Russell Gallery at Emerald Beach near Coffs Harbour.
2009
Exhibited with a fellow artist, Gayle Sparks, at the Art Shop Gallery in Coffs Harbour.
2004 - 2010
I was involved with various exhibitions in the local area, such as The Bellingen Art Prize, the Emsla Stilll Life Award, the Grafton Drawing Show and other local shows.
2010 - 2011
I taught a painting class at the Woolgoolga Art Group Gallery.
2012
Highly commended for a painting called ‘View from Above’ in the landscape section of the Woolgoolga Art Show.
2015 - 2016
Solo exhibition over Christmas, called People, Places and Politics at The Art Factory Gallery in Coffs Harbour.
2017 - 2018
Group show called ‘Destination Dorrigo’ at the Waterfall Way Gallery in Dorrigo.
2019
I won the landscape section of the Lillipilli Exhibition at the Woolgoolga Art Gallery with the painting called ‘Man versus Nature’.
During my time as an Art teacher I have actively sought to promote drawing, which I believe is the basis of all art. If you can't draw, you can't paint and you can't sculpt. However, I majored in painting and ceramics at Art School, and my work is now moving towards combining painting with 3D sculpture, especially slip cast ceramics, papier mache and artists’ modelling compound, which I hope to exhibit more in the future.