New Work

Venetian Dusk   Monotype 120mm x 170mm 2014 made on residency at The Art Vault, Mildura

 

Last Flare   Monotype 180mm x 380mm 2014 made on residency at The Art Vault, Mildura

Defiant Fire     Monotype

Fire Fight   Mopnotype

Firebrand

My personal favourite of a suite of works I have just parcelled up for Waterline in Mildura….

2014 Acrylic works- exclusive to Mildura

 

Reenactment Loop for Waterline Exhibition

Below is a still from the reenactment loop that I am bringing to Mildura to screen for the first time to commemorate 20 years since these amazing people conducted this burning of the PS Rodney event.

I would like to heartily acknowledge the wonderful people past and present who are the Riverboat Society. They and the Rotary and Lions groups and countless other voluntary organisations associated with the Paddlesteamers and barges of the Murray Darling have helped keep the physical boats, the memory and the history alive and well.

The reenactment organised by Steve Hedricks and Max Whiting was an unexpected success with hundreds flocking to the banks of the Darling on Polia Station to witness first hand the drama and the spectacle of the burning.

The Video was transferred to DvD by DVDit Mildura and masterfully edited by Gef Senz in Melbourne.

 

 

The Avoca

There is little doubt in my mind that the Avoca will float once again though it will not be easy. My best wishes to those who undertake the job of raising her.

We Burn Boats

Just four of twenty works that form The Odyssey. Oil paintings on found plywood that reflect upon a deep history in western thought and experience to do with burning boats and the epic tales of struggle across the high seas. The burning of the Acheans boats in the Illiad, the raft of the Medusa, the burning of the P.S. Rodney in the shearing strike of 1894, the continuing burning of ramshackle craft that make the odysseyan journey to Australia from war torn and stricken lands.

We Burn Boats opening in Space 39 in April 30 (for more info see: rodgrayart.com) is the only chance to see these works that have grown from the Waterline project which will be exhibited in Mildura in August this year to mark 120 years since the burning of the P.S.Rodney.

 

Residency unfurl continues…

Reception committee, 1894
oil/canvas 2013

Hooded ones
oil/canvas 2013

Mallee Quixote
monotype 2013

 

 

 

 

D.L.M

I have endured and enjoyed two days ‘lockdown’ making monotype prints…around 30 in total. this was spurred on by the discovery of this photo in a book on the history of Mannum, one of the towns that my g g grandfather lived and worked in. This is the barge Cowrie, built by D.L.Milne and one of these blokes is him. He designed and supervised the build so a guess has put him as the geezer on the left with the natty vest and walrus mo. Nice.

However there are at least three possibilities but I am an artist not a historian or a forensic photographic expert so here goes..

 

Mr David Lowe Milne esquire at your service, shipwright and dapper gent around the riverine promenade.

I also completed a series of hulls caught in river red gums after flood subsidence.. this being my favourite

Motherland[…title of picture]

 

I started this before Mildura, but there is no way known it would have finished like this without the sheer volume of trees I have seen.

This is an acrylic on paper I finished today.

 

 

Dawn heads

Dixon, Hooded Shearer and Young milne on a few lovely old cabinet doors I found…

the morning light up here has been misty and sensational. started two more big works today, stay tuned for those tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s one that goes ‘straight to the pool room’..or maybe a header for my website[below]. What a superb reenactment this was. Steve and Anne from Artback in Wentworth gave me a video of this reenactment and I had copies made for us all on dvd today.