The Prussian Incident: Major Design Fault found in the new Military Helmet.

I must have been on the cusp of sleep when absurd nonsense regarding the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 came to mind. More accurately, it wasn’t the war so much as the spiked helmets that the Prussians wore that came to mind. For some reason I pondered these helmets and dreamt that an associate professor Dr Dean Watson, author of the well-known book, “Military Helmets Over the Years,” had said the new Prussian spiked helmet was, “nothing but trouble”. My dreaming continued with Dr Watson saying that the first recorded incident involving these helmets was when General Otto Lutz threw his head back, laughing at a rude joke about the Austrians, and put a nasty gash in a fellow officer’s head. The officer had just taken his own helmet off to show a colleague a burr on the inside of his new helmet that was giving him an irritating rash. This absurd story finished with General Otto Lutz taking his helmet off, placing it on a chair and going to the toilet. On his return, distracted by his wounded colleague, he pulled out the chair and sat on his own helmet. Eye watering stuff. When I woke I could see that the problems of this spiked Prussian helmet had only really begun.

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Born in Hampshire, England, Colin arrived in Australia in 1971 and found work making chandeliers and later delivering rental televisions. Studying for matriculation over two years at night school he enrolled in Art College at the Preston Institute of Technology in 1975. A number of leading artists taught at PIT and Colin had the opportunity to work in audio with David Tolley, conceptualism with Dom De Clario, with the hard edge painting of Dale Hickey and the large, expressionistic work of Peter Booth, all of who have subtly influenced his own art. Majoring in Sound and Painting Colin left to drive taxis and to teach Art. Failing to heed the advice of a gallery director who told him to consider concentrating on one genre and sticking to it Colin continues to produce figurative paintings and drawings; large, ambient, colourwork and the occasional sculpture, installation and audio work.
About my artwork.
My work is generated from things around me that fit a certain feeling. At times I go looking and find them in places, or in objects and people. Other times I find them in a less active fashion, in sounds or perhaps in dreams or blends of colours. I find making artwork irresistible and enjoy the actual cognition of looking, listening and producing the work. Art is a rich tool, a mechanism that I can use to explore and respond to this curious and strange world where things appear both solidly real and also evasive and elusive.