Original Oil Paintings
Last Chance to See.... Extinction series - ongoing...!
2024 finds me continuing to work on the theme of species extinction...
Honestly, I am finding it extremely depressing, watching our unique wildlife being driven into oblivion - apparently unnoticed and/or unmourned by those in any real position to improve the situation!!
Honestly, I am finding it extremely depressing, watching our unique wildlife being driven into oblivion - apparently unnoticed and/or unmourned by those in any real position to improve the situation!!
2023 - 2024: 'Endling' has been/is an EPIC journey! Been in my head for a while, this one... but researching species extinction has been such a vast and totally depressing undertaking! I narrowed it down to 'only' my local critically endangered species, but even so it was overwhelming. Eventually, it has morphed into a Series - following the elements (Water,Earth, Air, Fire) and focused purely on my local Critically Endangered species... because there are just SO MANY of them! Heartbreaking!!!
Endling #2 (Element: Earth) was my entry for the bi-annual Great Southern Art Award, and hopefully brought some attention to the issue... the painting features four very well known local creatures - going clockwise from the top... Western Ground Parrot (Pezoporus flaviventris), Western Ringtail Possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), Numbat (myrmecobius fasciatus), Gilberts Potoroo (Potorous gilbertii) - interspersed with four less well known plants... Scaevola macrophylla, Banksia montana, Yellow Mountain Bell (Darwinia collina), and Grevillea maxwellii.
All being consumed by a bottomless Black Hole... all are now Critically Endangered:
Endling #1 (Element: Water)... here we have, clockwise from the top... Ruby Seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea), Sea-grass (Posidonia australis), Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis), Krill (Euphasia recurva), Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), coral sp., Australian Sea-lion (Neophoca cinerea), Australian Flat Oyster (Ostrea angasi).
Again... all local, native species... all being sucked into the vortex of extinction.
- Endling... an individual living thing that is the last survivor of its species or subspecies, and whose death consequently means the extinction of that species or subspecies.
Endling #2 (Element: Earth) was my entry for the bi-annual Great Southern Art Award, and hopefully brought some attention to the issue... the painting features four very well known local creatures - going clockwise from the top... Western Ground Parrot (Pezoporus flaviventris), Western Ringtail Possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), Numbat (myrmecobius fasciatus), Gilberts Potoroo (Potorous gilbertii) - interspersed with four less well known plants... Scaevola macrophylla, Banksia montana, Yellow Mountain Bell (Darwinia collina), and Grevillea maxwellii.
All being consumed by a bottomless Black Hole... all are now Critically Endangered:
- (CR Critically endangered species - facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future)
- (EN Endangered species - facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future).
Endling #1 (Element: Water)... here we have, clockwise from the top... Ruby Seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea), Sea-grass (Posidonia australis), Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis), Krill (Euphasia recurva), Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), coral sp., Australian Sea-lion (Neophoca cinerea), Australian Flat Oyster (Ostrea angasi).
Again... all local, native species... all being sucked into the vortex of extinction.
2022, August - November: August saw me working towards our annual Art Trail... this round wooden panel is a first for me. I found it interesting to work with, particularly the first paint layers, as the wood doesn't have the same grip as canvas. Quite happy with the end result, though... meet the Boobook Owl - the smallest owl in Australia, and a 'hawk owl'. The Boobooks local Nyungar name is Kukumat. Not currently uncommon, but the Boobook owl - like all birds of prey - is under intense threat from the widespread use of rodenticides.
November saw 'Primeval' completed at last - been a long and demanding process! - initially, this was intended to be the 'prequel' to the 'Morrigan Series'... but I feel that it is perhaps more of a stand-alone piece: Spirit of the Forrest - life before people...
November saw 'Primeval' completed at last - been a long and demanding process! - initially, this was intended to be the 'prequel' to the 'Morrigan Series'... but I feel that it is perhaps more of a stand-alone piece: Spirit of the Forrest - life before people...
2022, March - July: this larger piece came from a series of small acrylic sketches I painted almost a dozen years ago. Quite upsetting to think that nothing has changed, and it is still so relevant today.
Featuring a female Carnaby's black cockatoo (Zanda latirostris) fleeing her nesting hollow...
Featuring a female Carnaby's black cockatoo (Zanda latirostris) fleeing her nesting hollow...
2021, December: bit of a gap, but Flat / Line, the final in 'The Morrigan' series is finally done at last. I hope it's self-explanatory... and I'm going to put the series together below, so it reads properly...
2021, MARCH: Tipping / Point: second work in 'The Morrigan' series. Old-growth forest has now been replaced with roads, and rows of identical houses - "little boxes" - a forest of roofs, complete with fake-grass lawns. Habitat is being decimated, the creatures are disappearing, along with the life-giving rain the forests create - is this fore-shadowing our own fate? It's already with us - we are now at the tipping point!
2020, NOVEMBER: forever to be remembered as The COVID Year! Surprisingly little work got done here, despite the lock-downs; not that these were bad in WA, we have been extremely lucky all round. However, my focus recently has been on setting up a permanent venue for local artists and artisans, as a Collective - and with Down South that was initially successful... (however, people always have to spoil these things.. but that's a story for another day!).
So, moving on - by November, I eventually returned - full of hope for the new venture! - back to actually painting.
Paradise / Lost: This anti old-growth logging piece has literally been on the drawing board for nearly a year now - good to have it completed at last, and just in time for the years-end ArtSouth Exhibition. This is the first in 'The Morrigan' series - a linked series of oil paintings which will address the issues of deforestation, over-population, and the resulting catastrophic changes to our climate.
(The Morrigan, represented by a raven, is the Celtic Goddess of Death).
Finally, to finish out the year - a totally left-of-centre commission piece. This was a challenge, but a lot of fun - the research was fascinating, didn't realise how much Dr. Who I had absorbed over the years! How nice if he was real, and could come save us from ourselves!
So, moving on - by November, I eventually returned - full of hope for the new venture! - back to actually painting.
Paradise / Lost: This anti old-growth logging piece has literally been on the drawing board for nearly a year now - good to have it completed at last, and just in time for the years-end ArtSouth Exhibition. This is the first in 'The Morrigan' series - a linked series of oil paintings which will address the issues of deforestation, over-population, and the resulting catastrophic changes to our climate.
(The Morrigan, represented by a raven, is the Celtic Goddess of Death).
Finally, to finish out the year - a totally left-of-centre commission piece. This was a challenge, but a lot of fun - the research was fascinating, didn't realise how much Dr. Who I had absorbed over the years! How nice if he was real, and could come save us from ourselves!
2020, FEBRUARY: Couldn't help referencing the recent dreadful wildfires all around Australia, and in particular our local Dec-Jan fires - which devastated two-thirds of the Stirling Ranges National Park. It is feared that flora and fauna unique to the Stirlings NP may have been lost forever during the fires.
Numbats, which had become extinct in the region, had been reintroduced over the last twenty years. Sourced from Dryandra Woodland near Narrogin, a breeding colony at Perth Zoo, and Yookamurra Sanctuary in South Australia, Numbats were released in the western end of SRNP each year from 1998 to 2004. Hopefully, the new colonies may have survived...
Numbats, which had become extinct in the region, had been reintroduced over the last twenty years. Sourced from Dryandra Woodland near Narrogin, a breeding colony at Perth Zoo, and Yookamurra Sanctuary in South Australia, Numbats were released in the western end of SRNP each year from 1998 to 2004. Hopefully, the new colonies may have survived...
2020, JANUARY: a cheerful series based around my Rosella family, whose playful antics I can watch from my window as I sketch and paint them. A blessing!
2019, July: decided to try a seascape featuring a local visitor, the Humpback Whale - seen here cavorting off Middleton Beach, Albany - a regular stop-over on their annual migration North.
2019, March: First painting for 2019 was my entry for the Great Southern Art Award, and a little different for me. Themed around Species Extinction, this piece explores the escalating relationship between the long-extinct Archaeopteryx, which we only know from fossil relics, and the now critically endangered Carnaby's Black Cockatoo, which is rapidly being dragged down to the same fate.
2018 saw me visited by a sweet little Ring-tailed Possum, who made a nest in a hanging basket on my veranda. When the spider-plant was watered, she was very rudely awakened. Not sure which of us was the more shocked...! But she did forgive me, and came back.
Ringtail possums, once common locally, are now critically endangered - like so many other creatures - due to habitat loss, predators, poisons, road kill...
My little visitor inspired me to start a new series centred on our endangered local wildlife and ecology, and to explore painting with oils again. I find oils are much more effective than watercolours for dark, atmospheric subjects.
Keeping with the nocturnal theme, I decided to explore the Tawny Frogmouth next - which is a real 'Bird With Attitude'! - followed by the rapidly-disappearing little Brush-tailed Phascogale
Ringtail possums, once common locally, are now critically endangered - like so many other creatures - due to habitat loss, predators, poisons, road kill...
My little visitor inspired me to start a new series centred on our endangered local wildlife and ecology, and to explore painting with oils again. I find oils are much more effective than watercolours for dark, atmospheric subjects.
Keeping with the nocturnal theme, I decided to explore the Tawny Frogmouth next - which is a real 'Bird With Attitude'! - followed by the rapidly-disappearing little Brush-tailed Phascogale
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