Collection Twenty Eight | 'My Studio, My Home', Patrick Carroll
Life of the Artist | 1949 - 2019
'My Studio, My Home', Patrick Carroll
In 2019 the art world mourned the loss of the devoted landscape maverick Patrick Carroll.
The painter who called himself a “contemporary realist” was born in Bathurst NSW in 1949. Carroll’s life as a full-time painter began after a successful exhibition in 1974 and went on to fill every corner of his life: spiritually and literally. Awarded numerous art prizes his following was international and his style was singular.
He set up his studio next door to his home in Frenchs Forest and his artistic journey took off. The creative space was often described as ‘organised chaos’ where inspiration for his art piled up to the rafters. His materials did not stop at the brush and he forged sophisticated work with wild materials: tooth brushes, cling wrap, rags and twigs. His signature techniques activated the surface with scraping, scumbling and sweeping gestures.
Patrick Carroll’s mantra was, “Life is
Enough”. Life and art intertwined, his work chased
the light, danced with the line and posited gutsy unpredictable colour in dynamic compositions. And while he was known for making fast, determined marks to anchor a scene he was never an artist to finish a painting quickly. Some say, in creative terms, he “enjoyed a challenge”, his discipline, a self-imposed creative journey: each encounter with the work, a new opportunity to get to the heart of the painting. Carroll tackled urban scenes, water and earth with vigour, yet his soul seemed to revel in solitary beauty. The quiet places where light speaks. Of all of our best painters he understood the soul of trees best, taking pains to define every branch and leaf.
Like
Streeton, Carroll loved the romance of the artist’s camp and the
adventures of physically engaging the landscape. In the Australian tradition he loved the camaraderie of the
Winterlude group, a brotherhood of the brush and from 1997 to 2019 they travelled extensively together, painting en plein air. Only artists who work in that spirit capture the energy of living places and Carroll was highly sensitive to the fragility of the wild.
One of his final works was intended to be the first of a series. Like Pierre Bonnard, this painting was of a tree. An epic Angophora, symbol of the eternal and restlessly expansive with its outstretched limbs. 
Rochfort Gallery’s comprehensive survey of the work of Patrick Carroll is long overdue. Gathering together for the first time the generous arc of his work and capturing the broad facets of his devotion and skill. Here is an artist who painted from dawn to dusk and whose bright vision casts a long shadow.