STOP Pointing Fingers

Stop Pointing Fingers gets its colour scheme from a street STOP sign. This painting is the latest addition to my grey tone series where I feature two colours against a black and white composition. At the top of the painting I have balanced the red beach hat against a yellow caramel colour of the sandy beach.

The reason for the stop and look gesture of these ladies was because of a big wave surge in front of the North Narrabeen ocean pool. The lady in the white hat is pointing to a lone surfer who is riding a very large wave towards the beach. And even these locals, who have seen big surf many times before, had to stop and look.

My favourite detail in this composition was painting the shadows cast on the cement walkway. I like how the ladies bent pointed finger casts a faint shadow above the cement join in the pavement. It seems that everything is pushing the viewers eye towards the unseen horizon.

Stop pointing fingers comes with a 42 second video revealing the story of its making.And with this artwork, I continued with the STOP sign theme by making a timber floating frame in white with a red insert to match the colours used in the painting.

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I have taken the long road to discover that painting and photography can sit side by side, for me painting is my first meaningful creative outlet. I use my photography to inspire my artwork and I hope my love of composition, subject and light come through in my artwork.

I was born in Papua New Guinea and lived on a remote rubber plantation before moving to Sydney in 1971 at the age of 7. I was finding it hard adjusting to the city and my mother encouraged me to take up oil painting.

Having won an art competition when I was 10, the judges recommended that I study at the local TAFE on a Saturday morning. I completed one term but felt out of place with students who were all over 16 years old, so I did not continue. (I was also a TV junkie, we had no TV in Papua, and staying at TAFE meant missing out on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.)

It took me 40 years to rediscover painting.

The one constant in my work is to find a new project and during my break from painting I have been a project manager in Information Technology. This kept me in a world with projects, and here too I learnt that even the smallest piece of data contributes its meaning towards each information system. The other constant motivating me in life is to finish a project so I can start a new one.

My creative drive comes from knowing that each brush stroke I make contributes its meaning towards the completed work. What inspires me about art is how the smallest brush strokes, when added together, can radiate a meaning for the person who gazes at the painting far beyond the meaning of each brush stroke.

I aim to do my best in each project and try to avoid, at all cost, the haunting feeling I get when I leave a project unresolved. Even to this day I still think of my unfinished painting of a sailing boat peeping out behind photographic developing chemicals back in 1979. I was 15 then and my easel had been replaced by a camera and darkroom. A part of me still needed to finish the oil painting, but photography filled the void, so the unfinished artwork was thrown away in a frenzied darkroom clean out before my HSC exams.