Collection Twenty Nine | Phil Stallard 'Water Sonnets' Exhibition
Collection Twenty Nine | Phil Stallard 'Water Sonnets' Exhibition
'Cockatoo Island Rain'
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 155 x 155cm
Year: 2022
Artist: Phil Stallard
"I get a glimpse of Cockatoo Island as I drive over the Gladesville bridge on the way to my Rozelle studio, this time it was a rainy early morning. I arrived at the studio and created endless sketches until the composition was right, the things I couldn’t remember I made mistier, so the city has a “vibe”. The mist of half remembering mixed with memories of Pyrmont in the 80’s"
Through the complexity of covid, and floodwaters lapping at my studio at Wisemans, painting for me over the past year has been very Shakespearean. A new studio in Rozelle resulted in me travelling between two studios to paint, with glimpses out the car window of a water-soaked misty world. It is these glimpses that became most of the paintings I completed for the Water Sonnets exhibition.
Like Shakespearean and Milton Sonnets, these paintings are poetic interpretations of the landscape that inspires me, from the sweep of the Harbour driving over Gladesville bridge to the sensuality of the Hawkesbury and Macdonald Rivers. Some paintings are also memory flashbacks to my time working on the harbour in the 80’s, these works produced in Rozelle.
Everything is fluid, memories merge with experiences, the act of painting is transformative. The result is a kind of abstract sonnet. I want to convey the feeling I get from natural places, if the painting works there is an unequivocal connection to the experience.
I am simply mesmerized by the colour of water, winter mist on the river, the light at certain times of the day – these paintings are an existential feeling out of my world.