Artist/Gallery notes
ARTIST: "When I start a painting I usually have no idea how it will end up. The painting itself seems to take over and tell me what to do. This is especially true of this painting. It started out as a painting of Manly, a famous beach in Sydney, Australia, on a stormy day. Its still Manly, but somehow it has become a very romantic landscape in the 19th century tradition. It kept reminding me of a famous painting by Arnold Bocklin 'Island of the dead', which preceded Surrealism. I showed the painting to my 92 year old father and the first thing he said was that it reminded him of Bocklin. So the painting must have decided that Manly in a storm felt like an island of the dead. I am sure most Sydneysiders will disagree and I have to say that I think that Sydney is one of the great cities of the world, second only to Perth of course."