Talking With Painters

Juliet Holmes à Court is a Sydney painter who has been exhibiting regularly since 1991.  Her work is all about capturing the sense or feeling of her subject. Her paintings are filled with light and movement and take the viewer to a place where the tangible becomes intangible. She has had 13 solo shows, four since 2006 with Australian Galleries, Sydney. She has been included in many more group shows and has received numerous art prizes. She’s also been finalist in many other competitions including eight times in the Portia Geach portrait prize. In our conversation, we discuss her approach to painting, including the importance of taking risks in creating art. She also talks about her techniques and views on teaching. She’s one of the most sought after teachers in Sydney – her classes often have waiting lists and her workshops at the Art Gallery of NSW sell out quickly. She lives and works on Scotland Island, which is an island in Pittwater, in northern Sydney. Her home is literally among the gum trees whi

Euan Macleod is one of Australia’s and New Zealand’s most significant artists. He is best known for his powerful and symbolic paintings which set figures in a landscape. He has won many art awards including the Archibald, Wynne, Sulman, Blake, Tattersall’s and Gallipoli art prizes.  He has had over 100 solo shows and been involved in over 200 group shows across Australia and internationally. His works are held in almost every major public collection in Australia and of course many private collections. Macleod’s work has taken him all over the world, including remote places like Central Australia and Antarctica, and he has just returned from a trip to Yellow Mountain in China. We talk about his approach to landscape and figure painting and his views on interpretation of his work. He also shares information about his process and technique and talks about the unsettling experience of winning the Archibald in 1999. Scroll down to see a short video of Macleod in his studio. Feature photogra

See my TWP YouTube video of Susan in her studio here (filmed in 2022) Susan O’Doherty is a contemporary painter who also works in mixed media assemblages which she creates with found objects.  Her work often deals with social issues but also examines the nature of time, recollections and past experiences. She has exhibited in over 25 solo shows across Australia and New Zealand and has been involved in many more group exhibitions. Her current work deals with the issues she’s been focussing on in the last few years, particularly the treatment of women in our society and the violence which exists not only in our communities but also in the home. She addresses these themes in her upcoming Sydney show ‘Pinned to the Wall’. Her work is also touring the country in another show, ‘Moving House’, which is a collaboration with her partner, artist Peter O’Doherty, and looks at life when the family is frequently on the move. She also painted over 450 portraits for her 2008 show ‘900 Eyes R

Lucy Culliton is a contemporary realist painter who creates works across landscape, still life and portraiture. To give you an idea of Lucy Culliton’s popularity, in 2014 Sydney’s Mosman Art Gallery held a major survey of her work which contained over 100 works. That exhibition attracted more than 20,000 visitors. This year she was named as a finalist in all three Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes at the Art Gallery of NSW and she has been a finalist in those competitions many times before. She has received many art awards including the Portia Geach Memorial award, the Mosman Art prize and the Kedumba drawing prize.  She has exhibited in over ten solo exhibitions and her work is held in many public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of NSW. I met Lucy Culliton at her home in Bibbenluke, a small town in south eastern NSW.  She showed me around her property and introduced me to her many animals. She also opened up her studio to my iphone!  You ca

John Bokor is an award winning landscape and still life artist. He grew up in Sydney and lives in Bulli, NSW. He has had over a dozen solo exhibitions and his work is held in many public and private collections. Equally prolific in drawing and painting, Bokor’s art depicts everyday life and his environment with an emotion and vibrancy which makes the viewer take notice. He has won several art prizes including the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize and Eutick Memorial Still Life Award and he has been finalist in many others. In our interview, Bokor talks about his education in Sydney and travels overseas where he was inspired by Bonnard’s bath paintings, we ponder over whether you can ever say what makes a piece of art ‘good’, he reveals much about his process and he explains his motivational ‘anti pep-talk’ which he gives his art students. John Bokor’s solo show at King Street Gallery opens on 8 November and continues until 3 December 2016. You can see a short vi

Nick Stathopoulos has been a finalist many times in Australia’s Archibald and Doug Moran Portrait prizes and his 2016 portrait ‘Deng’ of refugee lawyer Deng Adut was awarded the Archibald Prize’s People’s Choice award. Last year his painting of writer Robert Hoge was shortlisted in the renowned BP Portrait Award in London which attracted over 400,000 visitors.  The portrait was also reproduced on the cover of the Times. His art career spans many fields including illustration, book cover design, computer game design, animation, screenwriting, film making and sculpture and this is all on top of an arts/law degree. He has won several awards for his illustration work but has found a real passion in hyper realist painting of portraits and still lifes. In this interview Nick talks about how children’s television of the 60s provided him with the inspiration to draw toys, cars and machines as a child, he explains why he can never eat another Freddo frog and reveals how he came to n

Joanna Braithwaite grew up in Pleasant Point, a small country town in New Zealand, and has been living in Australia for over 16 years. In the last few weeks she has been named as a finalist in both the Sulman and Mosman art prizes and has been a finalist in many more including the Archibald and Portia Geach prizes. Her solo exhibition ‘Social Animal’ is currently showing at Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney’s Paddington. Although Joanna’s work includes paintings with figures and still life, it’s safe to say her predominant subject is that of animals. From birds, reptiles and fish to bears horses, elephants, sloths and particularly dogs, Joanna has expertly captured creatures in paint. But she hasn’t just represented them as we find them in the world as you can see from these images and you will hear all about her approach in this interview. We talk about the lengths to which she went to study the anatomy of animals in her early art career including a trip to an abbatoir. She also talks ab

Abdul Abdullah is a four time Archibald finalist and this year he has paintings hanging in both the Archibald and Sulman prizes in the Art Gallery of NSW. He has won several art prizes including the Blake Prize for Human Justice in 2011 and has been finalist in many others. Abdul’s art delivers a strong message. Issues of identity and the current political environment concerning  the Muslim community in Australia are front and foremost in his work. We talk about how he sees 9/11 impacted the Muslim community and how after that event ‘it became apparent that in the popular imagination Muslims in Australia had become the ‘bad guys”.  We also talk about the 2005 Cronulla riots and how he came about painting retired police officer Craig Campbell for the Archibald. He also gives insights into his painting process and photographic art. Abdul’s work is currently included in four shows in Victoria and NSW with another three coming up over the next few weeks, including a solo show in Melb

George Raftopoulos held his first solo show when he was still in his third year of university at only 20 years of age. He has been exhibiting ever since in Australia and internationally in New York, Hong Kong and Paris. He has a relentless energy and rebellious attitude which comes through in his art. I had been aware of Raftopoulos’ work for some time but it wasn’t until I started following him on Instagram that I really got a sense of what his art was about. His prolific output, imagination, humour and bold aesthetic were something I used to look forward to on my feed. Then suddenly one day he deleted it all!  I thought – what is going on? Well, I found out in this interview. We talk about his early years when his was the only Greek family in the small NSW town of Grenfell, the moment in his teenage years which defined which direction his life would take, his process, inspiration, purpose and the effect of the internet on the art world. Scroll down to see a short video made in 2018 of Raf

Louise Hearman is an acclaimed Melbourne artist and winner of the 2016 Archibald Prize for portraiture. She also won the prestigious Doug Moran National portrait prize in 2014 and has been the winner of  several other art prizes.  She is well known for her enigmatic and, at times, eerie portrayal of people and landscapes. She has had 12 solos shows and has been involved in many more group exhibitions. In this interview Hearman talks about how, even as a small child, her drawings contained elements of the work she would later create.  She also explains why her works are predominantly untitled and what she initially intended to enter into the 2014 Doug Moran prize.  She also tells why she likes working on masonite and what it is she calls ‘bungle bungles’ (and when to retire them). Upcoming events Louise Hearman, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney,  29 September – 4 December 2016.  The exhibition will then travel to TarraWarra Museum of Art in 2017. Show Notes (links to people and things we

Katherine Hattam is a multi award winning painter and printmaker whose works are held in most of Australia’s major public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of NSW. She has exhibited in over 20 solo shows and many more group shows and has won numerous art prizes including the Banyule and Robert Jacks drawing prizes. In this conversation, Hattam begins by talking about the experience of growing up as the daughter of Melbourne art collectors and modern art patrons Hal and Kate Hattam.  Hal Hattam was a gynaecologist and later a successful painter in his own right and Kate Hattam was once reported to be the ‘highest paid woman in Australia’ in her job as the advertising manager of the upmarket Melbourne department store Georges. They held an extensive art collection of works of their artist friends which included Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams, John Brack, Clifton Pugh, Charles Blackman and Jan Senbergs. Portraits of her parents pai

Most Australians have heard of the Archibald prize, the nation’s most famous portrait prize, partly because of the controversies which seem to follow it. When Francis Giacco won in 1994, that year was no exception. In this conversation, he recalls the day he won and how the win influenced his career.  Francis is a contemporary realist painter and lives in Sydney.  He has won and judged numerous art competitions. In 2014 he won the prestigious Percival Prize for Portraiture with his portrait of Charles Blackman. He has had many solo shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and his work was selected to appear in the ABC production of Rake.  In this interview, Francis talks about his childhood influences, travels overseas, teaching at Julian Ashton Art school, his art process, people he has met along the way and how his painting was eerily affected just prior to his diagnosis with lymphoma five years ago. Show notes: Francis Giacco Julian Ashton Art School Jeffrey Smart Brian Dunlop Justin O’Brien Ku