Ken done > Permanent Collection
Night bridge and Opera House 2004, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120cm
As I’m doing this recording, this painting is about to be shown in Denmark with a group of other Australian artists including Brett Whitely, Lloyd Rees, Sidney Nolan, Peter Kingston, myself: paintings by Australian artists that have been influenced and inspired by the Opera House. It is the most wonderful building, the Opera House, and I’m very, very fortunate that my gallery and my studio is quite close, in fact it’s opposite the Opera House so most days I walk from where I park my car past the Opera House to look across and see it. It’s always thrilling and I’m sure it will continue to inspire artists and musicians in Australia for a long period of time. In this particular painting, it’s a night scene and I’ve often painted pictures about the boats and the night. Again it’s an example of the difference between painting and photography. In the painting you are able, or I am able, to make the Opera House bright, stark white. I’ve painted it in using its kind of ribs and its form in a sail-like position. I’ve made its reflection as a daytime reflection even though the rest of the sea is dark and the feeling and the pattern of the little boats that you see at night. The bridge, which is always inspiring too, I’ve scraped it into the paint with an old file that was my grandfather’s file. Sometimes it’s interesting to use different devices to make a mark and it’s funny for me to think that my grandfather, who was an engineer and died when I was maybe 10 or 12, that I still find a way of using something of his to make art.
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