Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here -  this is a  personal response to the work of Warwick Fuller by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Cobar Overture

I once met a high end art industry valuer and auctioneer who was of the strong opinion that the last thing Australia needs is another landscape artist. Perhaps. I hope he meant we don't need any more mediocre landscape artists, but I suspect not. If that attitude was taken to heart by artists, then we would not have the work of Warwick Fuller to admire and enjoy.

Shark Bay Headland

We were visiting Broken Hill and curiously doing the rounds of the many art galleries in that small town in the middle of nowhere in the desert. It's the same trip that I got to see Pro Hart's work. Although there is a plethora of art and galleries in Broken Hill, the art is mostly appalling and made to make a quick buck out of tourists. So we'd dropped into yet another gallery and were mooching about when we saw a painting that jumped off the wall at us with life.

Sketch for Cliff Top, Sublime Point

Sofala Shed

Great paintings have presence.

The brushwork was incredible. I mean virtuosic. The vitality of the painting was breathtaking. We had stumbled across a Warwick Fuller landscape.

Spinifex in Morning Light

Spring on the Peel River

I've since seen many more of his works in person and gathered several catalogues of his paintings. And generally, the brushwork is always incredible. It's a hallmark of his work. It's a trait I admire and want to work towards mastering. These are emphatically paintings, not images.

Coastline Patonga

Grazing in the Valley

Warwick Fuller is a also painter of light and mood. To me his work continues on from the Australian Impressionists like Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts.

Rugged Gulley Bathed in Light

Sun on an Overcast Day

It's all about light, light, light. Australian light and Australian colour. I think he captures it beautifully. The colours are absolutely superb. I'm quite a fan of the colour of the Australian bush. It's subtle and unique and I think we should celebrate what we have. We're not Europe or America here. Our light and plants are different, and fantastic.

Shadows Cast, Mt Nameless

Meet the artist - Warwick Fuller demonstrates and chats about his painting while out on a camping and painting tour. Yet another landscape artist I like...

More Warwick Fuller links

Official site: http://www.warwickfuller.com/
Represented by: Katoomba Fine Art
YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/warwickfuller

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Arthur Streeton by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Streeton was introduced to plein air painting by Roberts. This was a brand new thing in Australia in the 1890's. I sense an excitement and pride in these outdoor paintings, perhaps from being involved in something so new and radical? These paintings have the effect of making me wish I had been there, travelling Australia and painting outside with the little group of master painters, making history.

Another large part of my attraction to Streeton's work is the period of Symbolism that he explored. Using realistically painted landscapes and figures he could evoke an otherworldlyness that was more concerned with memory, mood or a season than ordinary reality. I really enjoy this imaginative aspect of his work, travelling in the mind. It also reminds me of Art Nouveau and the style of Alphonse Mucha.

More links to Arthur Streeton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Streeton

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Tom Roberts by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Tom Roberts is a revered figure in Australian painting. For me, he's a painter who has command of this country's subtle colours and a spine tingling ability to capture typical Australian light. This is something I wish to accomplish myself.

He was a versatile painter, being accomplished in every genre. Although he is most well known for his landscapes, portraiture was his bread and butter.

If you get the chance to see his work in the real world, take it. He was an exceptionally technically talented painter. The sort of talent that is part natural and part hard won by pushing your skill boundaries every single day. Yes, he really was that good. Goosebumps.

After four years’ study in Europe he returned to Melbourne and was the lynchpin of Australian open air impressionist landscape painting. For encouraging and mentoring and championing Australian Impressionism, he is known as the father of Australian landscape painting. What a legacy!

 Part of what I enjoy about his works are his snapshot-paintings of his era. Telling the stories of life in that time.

Especially cheeky stories that get beneath the Victorian era veneer of endless perfection.

His paintings of his era; of bushrangers, hold ups, pioneering life, sheering sheep, clearing the land - tapped straight into a nationalistic self image. They captured the public imagination. They still do. Many of his paintings are considered to have been creators of Australia's self image, of defining a common identity. At least if you were white and male.

While many artists realise that recording the times they live in, being a memorialist, is an important function of art, not many accomplish this in the way that Tom Roberts did. His ability to create far more than just snapshots or pretty pictures, that story telling ability of the sort that unites a community - this is what I really admire. The creation of iconic images.

More Tom Roberts links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Roberts

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.