These are resin paintings on surfboards, based on the imagery from Dream. I shaped a new board for myself last year, and it came out pretty well, so I thought I’d get Sage Joske, at Valla Surfboards, to glass it for me. My glassing skills are a bit hit and miss, and Sage is one of the best craftsmen on the coast, having learnt his skills from his father, Paul. By way of payment, he asked if I was interested in doing some artwork for him. Ever since I made the first resin paintings with Andrew Kidman a couple of years ago, I’ve wanted to try the technique on a real board. I suggested we put them straight over the laminate in filler resin, then finish the board normally. Sage knows a lot more about these things than I do, and said we should do them in laminating resin. The board was glassed with a dark blue pigment, then the details added over the top, one colour at a time. The boards are a couple of Sage’s signature Fish designs, and are works of art in their own right. Sage still shapes every board by hand, from scratch.
Next week there’s an art show at Retrospect Galleries, Byron Bay, as part of the Byron Bay Surfing Festival. They’ve asked me to contribute some pieces, so I’m bringing a few resin paintings, as well as some of the original framed cels from Dream. Then, the other day, I remembered the boards I did for Sage, and suggested to Jimmy McMillan, who’s curating the show, that I bring one of them along, too. I think it will all look pretty good together.
Well, I won first prize this year, and even managed to get the wetsuit they promised last year, so it all worked out pretty well. The nice part for me, apart from winning the money, was having my work acknowledged by someone like Martyn Worthington (pictured, in the white shirt). When I was 14 or so, I bought a second hand Hot Buttered Surfboard, shaped by Terry Fitzgerald, which featured one of Worthington’s spray paintings on the bottom; of a dolphin, bathed in the sun’s rays. That board was my pride and joy until it came off the car one day and snapped in half on Pittwater Road. I mentioned this to Martyn, and he reflected somewhat wistfully that, since most of the work he has done over the years was on surfboards, most of it has ended up battered and dinged, and often ultimately ended its life at the tip. There are very few pieces that have survived in original condition, which is something most artists would not have to reckon on.
This is my entry for this year’s Surfing World magazine portraiture prize, the Worthys. The event is named after legendary ’70s Hot Buttered spray man Martyn Worthington. The mag is offering a cash prize to the best portrait of a surfer, as judged by Worthington himself. This year I painted young Scotts Head surfer Jack Lynch. I’ve known the family for a few years, and drew portraits of Jack and his brothers and sister when they were younger. Jack is currently studying for his HSC, and has made a bit of a name for himself as a logger in recent times. Here, he’s sitting in his bedroom, battling mild sunstroke, I suspect, and struggling to stay awake after a weekend of heavy surfing. I’m pretty happy with this picture.
This is the second year they’ve run the competition. Last year, I painted Alby Falzon, and was awarded second place. They told me I’d won a new wettie, but I still haven’t got it. I’m glad they hold the competition, though, because it’s at least an attempt to bring some critical rigour to the culture and give surf art some historical perspective. People like Worthy and Tony Edwards should be in the Surfing Hall of Fame, or whatever they call it, alongside the surfers and photographers and film makers, because they play a big part in what surfing is, and how the culture perceives itself.
In September I drove up to North Queensland to carry out the work on the Charters Towers mural. I was a bit apprehensive because I’d had to negotiate a timeframe and price for the work – but I only had a few photographs to go on, to judge how much work was actually involved.
As it turned out, it took just over two weeks, so the assessment wasn’t too far off the money. I scraped it back where necessary, cleaned it all up and replaced the colour where needed. This wasn’t quite the headache I’d imagined it might be, as modern technology is able to analyse the loose flakes of paint and match the colour exactly. I just collected a few flakes and took them to the hardware store.
The major part of it was re-doing the sky, which had faded to white. That meant about five days up a scaffolding, five or six metres off the ground. The finished work came up pretty well, I thought, and the local Council were happy. The first photo gives a good idea of the scale of the thing.
Painting for Surf Aid auction
I did this painting a couple of months ago for auction by Surf Aid, to raise money for the medical work they do in Indo. The board was a brand new board, never to be surfed, they said, so I did an oil painting on it of the wife. As an artefact, its kind of strange… Is a board that will never be surfed still a surfboard? I don’t know, but if you want to buy it, put in a bid – I believe it’s due to be auctioned in November.
These are some recent photos of a mural I produced in Charters Towers, Qld, back in ‘87. I instigated, designed and directed the project, which covers a prominent wall in the middle of town, with the co-operation of the local Council and Qld Arts Council. As you can see, it was a pretty big project, and involved five weeks of running up and down scaffolding. The sun up there’s so fierce, we used to start at 6.00am and knock off at 10 or 11, then go back after 2.00 in the arvo, when the sun had gone behind the wall. I got another artist, Kim Mahood, to help out. She and I were sharing a studio space at the time. Kim was a sculptor mainly, but she was a good painter, too, so I got her to paint all the people, while I concentrated on the buildings and overall layout. It came up pretty well, I thought, and people were very pleased with it – in fact, it’s become something of a local landmark. So much so that the local Council got in touch with me recently and asked if I’d consider coming back up there to fix it up. The sun and elements have taken their toll on the surface of it, as you can see, but it’s stood up pretty well, considering. It actually kind of amazes me that, in twenty years, no one ever graffiti’d over it.
These are some photos of my recent exhibition at Black Rock Gallery, Nambucca Heads. The fellow who runs the place, Russell Pell, is a photographer, and the gallery usually features photos and prints of Russell’s work, as well as prints from well-known local surf photographers such as Frank Pithers and Alby Falzon. I guess it was my work in surf magazines that persuaded Russell that it might be a good fit for the gallery.
The show looked great, I thought. Up until recently, I was showing through David Rex-Livington Contemporary Art in Surry Hills, in Sydney. But David was only ever interested in oil paintings and serious, fine art work, which was sometimes frustrating for me and my somewhat schizophrenic artistic interests.
So it was nice to be able to show the other side of what I do, for once, and have the chance to appreciate the resin paintings, original animation cels and pen and ink drawings, as well as some Gonad Man comics, in the same context as the oil paintings. For a long time, I have been trying to organise a situation whereby I could see the different sides of my art all together, in the one room. And although, from a selling point of view, the exhibition wasn’t exactly a huge success, thanks go to Russell, and his wife, Cristina, for the opportunity of making that happen.
