1200mm x 800mm acrylic on wood panel, contemporary Tasmanian Oak frame
The colour, shapes and the sea all combine to create characters and a story usually unfolds while I’m organising the elements and getting composition and balance right. Effectively a painting usually decides what it wants to be and there’s no getting away from it. This painting started life as a vertical still and atmospheric Japanese like garden until I turned it the other way and suddenly I saw the piano man…
A cast of characters gather together for a jam session at the iconic beachside bar on Little Bay Jost Van Dyke island. Back in the 1990s you could only get there by your own boat or ferry or dinghy around from the main bay. Ivan’s was a completely open beach shack decorated with shells and there was always a few musical instruments lying around. There was no bar man; you simply helped yourself and left the money on top of the fridge. Photos of guests relaxing and ‘liming’ were Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones; Richard Branson who owned the island nearby and bluesman Eric Clapton.