canvas book
DESCRIPTION
Canvas Design Consultants - Book Volume 1TRANSCRIPT
B E D R O O M S
H A N D C R A F T E D F O R L I V I N G
™
The Hon Penny Sharpe MLCAustralian Labor PartyNew South Wales Legislative Council
Parliament HouseMacquarie StreetSydney NSW 2000T (02) 9230 2741F (02) 9230 [email protected]
The Hon Penny Sharpe MLCAustralian Labor PartyNew South Wales Legislative Council
Parliament HouseMacquarie StreetSydney NSW 2000T (02) 9230 2741F (02) 9230 [email protected]
The Hon Penny Sharpe MLCAustralian Labor PartyNew South Wales Legislative Council
Parliament HouseMacquarie StreetSydney NSW 2000T (02) 9230 2741F (02) 9230 [email protected]
The Hon Penny Sharpe MLCAustralian Labor PartyNew South Wales Legislative CouncilParliament HouseMacquarie StreetSydney NSW 2000T (02) 9230 2741F (02) 9230 [email protected]
T H E A R T I S T
Pro Har t was a passionate man. And his passions were the fuel that drove the creative engine; religion,
paranoia, politics and conspiracies provided the motivation for Pro to translate his beliefs into images. Works
l ike People Looking For God, The Persecution of Pauline Hanson, One World Government, The Greenies,
The Folly of The TAB, The Last Trump and the Crucif ix ion were his way of expressing his passions to the
world. One on one conversation was never a strong suit, in fact, he could be downright incomprehensible,
leaping from one thought to another with no par ticular logic, but painting allowed Pro Har t to
centralise his statement and lay it out for all to see.
Painting was Pro’s way of conversing. It was easier for him, and much clearer for the audience. Painting forced
him to concentrate on one topic, make one point. It was also how he made much of his political comment. It
was how he stood up to the shif t boss, extolled his religion and suppor ted his causes. Recipients included
Lindy Chamberlain, Pauline Hanson and any number of conspiracy theories.
The main body of Pro’s work is Naive in style and Pro was essential ly a narrative painter who used the
landscape and mining scenes as a backdrop or stage to tell a par ticular story. Paintings such as Racetrack,
Townscape and Bush are f i l led with the characters of his childhood and big occasions l ike Menindee race
day or from Broken Hil l. He retained them all; from the playful drunks and kids playing, to the couples singing
and grandma asleep in her chair. The public loved it. Not the ar t establishment who complained of him being
too commercial, too prolif ic, but the middle-aged middle classes who were coming into their own with a
l it tle spare money and were spending it on ar t. Pro cer tainly identif ied with them, and to a cer tain extent he
painted for them.
Pro never called himself a landscape painter. Indeed, he hated the label because he felt it l imited what he was
trying to say with a painting. Almost all of his work was a comment; the landscape merely a plat form for the
characters within. Because that was his true driver; to ar ticulate a message to a wider audience that he, a shy,
Pro’s Studio c1980 - Detail
T H E R E L I G I O N
Like many ar tists before him, religion drove much of Pro Har t ’s work. Both in terms of his energetic fervour
in incorporating so much religious iconography and his quite equal disdain for the organised side of religion.
Clearly his early l i fe at the hands of the Marist Brothers in Broken Hil l had an impact. He never spoke about
it much and would actively avoid the subject if he could. One might idly speculate about the f ierceness of
a Marist brothers education in an outback town in 1940. Cer tainly his family, and son John in par ticular,
remembers gruf f references to a ‘cruel place’. Raylee, his wife, talks of a tough place where strong ideas
came up against r igid discipline where the cane was reached for fair ly quickly if you stepped out of l ine.
Religion for Pro was personal. Something he adhered to, spoke up for but tended not to judge others with.
As a boy he was uncaring at best about religion, and it wasn’t unti l his early adulthood in the mines that he
discovered the two passages that seemed to provide the tipping point to his enlightenment. He found them
in Matthew, and they formed a distinctive guide that shaped much, if not all, of his l i fe:
“Take therefore ye no thought for tomorrow.”
To Pro this meant paint in the now, let God guide your hand and aim for spontaneity.
“Judge not that ye be not judged.”
He seemed to genuinely hold on to this thought, very rarely moving into a position of judgement about how
others l ived their l ives. His political comment was more about the power wielded by the few rather than an
inherent criticism of an individual.
There is no dispute that Pro hated formal religion and all the associated iconography. The central religious
theme in Pro’s work is that you cannot experience God in any meaningful way by simply attending church and
saying the prescribed prayers. God was something that could only be experienced by personal revelation and
faith. The images of Crosses and Nuns were put in to highlight a system of belief that rang hollow.
The Eternal Now - Detail
Helen Cross ingCreat ing Inspirat ional Workplaces BSc, DipEd, MEd, MAPS
Managing Director
Suite 5 , Level 2 , 65 York StSydney NSW 2000P: + 61 (02) 9223 2611F: + 61 (02) 9223 2363E: helen@hcaconsult ing.com.au www.hcaconsult ing.com.au
Terra Incognita
The Terrain, Mixed Media on Italian Canvas, 150cm by 150cm
Shortly after leaving Coopers Creek, the party found themselves battling ridges of loose sand up to 20 metres high.
Night Sky, Mixed Media, Oil on Linen, 123cm by 92cm
T
The Campsite, Oil on Board, 68cm by 43cm
The explorers arrived at Coopers Creek on 11 November 1860 – the beginning of the hot season. Wills documented temperatures exceeding 100 with the highest hitting 109 in the shade.
Where To From Here, Oil on Belgium Linen, 120cm by 130cm
