Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 4:Through a glass darkly

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower.

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level

at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower

Painting of Barangaroo at sunset, waiting for the fireworks.

People have gathered on the 'knuckle' of North Barangaroo to see the fireworks. When this area was still an operational port, the wharfies and their families used to sit here and have a picnic outside the now demolished Shed 3.

The parade of tall ships and other Heritage Fleet vessels decked out in fairy lights, sailing the length of Sydney Harbour, is my favourite part of the whole celebration.

Self Portrait with painting of Sydney Heritage Fleet with fairy lights.
One of my traditions is to paint the fireworks on New Year's Eve and other major celebrations from the vantage point of the top of the Sydney Ports Corporation's Harbour Control Tower.
This may be for the last time.
There are no guarantees that this Tower will have any place in the redevelopment of Barangaroo. If it is to be retained, what function will it serve?
The interior spaces of both the amenities floor, where I paint, and the top floor, where the port operations are carried out, are very snug, to say the least. There isn't much room. The Tower is a magnificent observation post with breath-taking 360 degree panoramic Sydney Harbour views, but the number of people that could visit at any one time would be severely limited. I am worried that the Tower would be seen as being not economically viable to maintain in the new Barangaroo.
It could be demolished at any time after April 2011, which is when all the port operations will be finally transferred to Port Botany. Even if it is not immediately demolished, it will be inaccessible for a couple of years while major earthworks will be disrupting the Northern end of the Barangaroo Headland. The sandstone escarpment will be buried in earth to provide a slope down from Merriman St to the new shore of the Barangaroo Headland Park. I wonder how the inhabitants of the quaint little terraces in Merriman St will cope? They are a stoic, laid back bunch, but these changes will be traumatic.

Happy New Year!

Brilliantly renovated and cut in half

'Red Square'  and 'The Drill Rig' - An update

 This painting and the next were originally parts of the same canvas. A sudden gust of wind and the canvas was picked up and impaled on the edge of the easel. One of the many hazards of life as a plein air painter!
I had the damaged canvas standing face to the wall at home for several weeks, too depressed to look at it more closely.
Instead of a repair I finally decided to complete the surgery and separate it into 2 square canvases.
I had to decide what to lose and what to keep. The original canvas contrasted the meditative reflections of the interior with the activity of the exterior. Now they have been accidentally and forcibly separated. I was very upset at first, but, on the principle of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger', I'm starting to appreciate their qualities as separate canvases.

'Red Square'

'Red Square' oil on canvas 36 x 36cm

Now 'Red Square' is truly just that : a red square on a square canvas. Unless you know what you are looking at and where it comes from, it could be an excercise in abstraction.

Degas and the Drill Rig

'The Drill rig teams.' oil on canvas 36 x 36cm

I enjoy the idea of a 'picture within a picture', especially with the framing device such as the window or the curtain caught in the act of being moved to reveal the background image which is the real focus of the painting. That painterly trick is called "repoussir" ( 'to push back' in the original French) and I picked it up from studying the works of the master of perspective and design, the French Impressionist, Edgar Degas. While most people are looking at his ballet dancers, I try to prise apart the jigsaw of his compositions. His pastels of dancers would have been charming, yet forgettable, if they had merely presented a full length image of the subject. By cropping his subject unexpectedly and half hiding/half revealing his dancers behind staircases, furniture or doorframes, Degas added the element of surprise. There is a feeling of chance with the encounter; even an element of the voyeur.

This shows the bi-fold door half opened to reveal the drill rig teams, about to start drilling. It is unclear whether the door is opening or closing. The scene is deceptively still; the trucks have arrived; the men have set up their equipment and are poised to start work. This is the calm before the storm.

For the earlier incarnation of these 2 canvases as a single larger canvas see my post in this blog: "Red Square"

Barangaroo : Terminal -The Artist's Studio

My Studio at Barangaroo : Works in progress


Painting inside the the former Cruise ship Terminal at Darling Harbour 8 painted in July-August 2010. 

"Red Square"

A race against time

I make the big move out of the terminal

"Grabber,Muncher, Ripper,"

"Grabber, ripper,muncher" 2010 oil painting on canvas 31 x 31cm

Yes, they actually are the proper names of the attachments to the excavators! I'm not making them up. Truly.

The "Grabber" is in the centre, the "Ripper" is the wicked looking blade on the right, while the "Muncher" is the monster with the fluoro pink "eye" & the toothy jaws in front of the red door to the left. The workmen promised me that there is also a "Pulverizer" that will arrive later. This I have to see!

A good day at the office

The very last day that I was able to leave my easels and canvases inside the terminal. I've now moved my stuff into a room in the loading dock of the old Sydney Ports Corporation Maintenance building that has been recently used to display the designs for Barangaroo. Not for long, apparently - Bovis LendLease has already moved the entrance twice and I've noticed construction of new site offices starting in the north-west corner. This building will obviously be the next to go after the DH8 terminal. Exactly when is anyone's guess.

Barangaroo : 'Grabber, Ripper, Muncher'

Barangaroo : 'Grabber, Ripper, Muncher'

'Grabber, Ripper, Muncher'  2010 oil painting on canvas 31 x 31 cm

As well as "Grabber", "Muncher" and "Ripper" I have learnt some more evocative & descriptive terms for the attachments to excavators. "What are those bucket-like things on the end of them?" I tentatively asked. "Buckets" was the reply. I must be getting the hang of it now. The buckets with teeth are called "toothed buckets" and the blunt ones are called "mud buckets". Sheer poetry.

Barangaroo : Terminal- 'Out of Time'

Inside the former cruise ship terminal at Wharf 8, Barangaroo

The completed painting "Out of time " unfinished oil painting on canvas 31 x 31 cm

A poignant little genre painting. Stopped clocks; a security sign; an abandoned storeroom. Industrial memento mori. I found a plaque commemorating the opening of this building - 1999. Not all that long ago, but already it seems like an eon has passed.
Sydney Ports Corporation has just arrived to take possession of this sign. I found it's inscription hilarious - it was about how passengers with cardiac pacemakers were not to go through the X ray machines, but had to be bodily searched by the security guards! if they didn't have heart problems to start with they would when they finished; all the excitement might prove too much!

Barangaroo: I saw the number '8' in red...

Barangaroo : Terminal -Arrivals Hall

This is an unfinished oil painting on canvas of the interior of the deserted former cruise ship terminal at Darling Harbour Wharf 8, Barangaroo.

My first day of painting this canvas:

'I saw the number '8' in red... '  oil painting on canvas 56 x 76cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com 

The title is my homage to the 1928 Charles Demuth painting "I saw the number 5 in gold..", an icon of American Modernism. Like Demuth, I never let go of reality.

The 2nd day of this painting :

'I saw the number '8' in red... '  oil painting on canvas 56 x 76cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com 

The 2nd day of this painting- nearly finished, but needs glazing to emphasize the reflections & the dramatic shafts of light from the doorways.

The completed painting:'I saw the number '8' in red... '  oil painting on canvas 56 x 76cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com 

Starting my 2nd painting of the interior of the Arrivals Hall:
Setting out a rough idea of the composition:

"I saw the number '8' in red" 2010 unfinished oil painting on canvas  61 x 183cm

Starting work on a large panoramic interior of the Arrivals Hall. This is a Saturday, and apart from the bored security guards on the gate I have the whole place more or less to myself so it is eerily silent.

For a change I have managed to get here early. I've been battling a killer bout of flu for over a month and I've had to push myself to keep working. My throat has been so sore that I can only eat jelly and chicken soup for the last week. I've taken in a thermos of icecubes to numb my throat and they seem to help. Whinge, whinge. This is totally self inflicted- I've been painting outdoors in the middle of winter on a freezing cold wharf in a howling gale & to misquote Alice in Wonderland it is bound to disagree with you sooner or later. However I wouldn't swap what I do for anything; it keeps me endlessly fascinated. I only wish that I wouldn't get ill just at this crucial point in the history of Sydney Harbour - this is the last wharf on the historic Hungry Mile, which has been the fountainhead of Australia's maritime industry since settlement over 200 years ago, and it will be demolished in less than a fortnight! No other artist in Australia seems to have an MSIC or a greencard; so I am the only person permitted to paint any of this.

Half way through my 1st day of painting :

"I saw the number '8' in red" 2010 unfinished oil painting on canvas  61 x 183cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com  

At the end of the first day:

"I saw the number '8' in red" 2010 unfinished oil painting on canvas  61 x 183cm
SOLD
Enquiries about similar paintings :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com  

I have used 'terminal' as part of the title of paintings in this series as a play on words. The following nuances of meaning I found particularly apt :

1.situated at or forming the end or extremity of something...

2. occuring at or forming the end of a series, succession, or the like; closing; concluding

7.pertaining to or placed at a boundary, as a landmark.

8. occuring at or causing the end of life: a terminal disease.

9.(Informal) utterly beyond hope, rescue or saving...

10. a terminal part of a structure; end or extremity.

13. a station on the line of a public carrier,as in a city centre ... where passengers embark or disembark...

(Courtesy of Dictionary.com)

Take your pick!


Related Posts

• Barangaroo : 'Maersk Gateshead' -The Last Container Ship (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Barangaroo : Terminal- 'Out of Time' (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Terminal, End or Extremity (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Cruising (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• My Studio at Barangaroo (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)

Barangaroo : Red Square

Barangaroo: Painting inside the former cruise ship terminal

"Red Square" unfinished oil painting on canvas 41 x 91cm

A work in progress, still on the easel.

 'Red Square' oil painting on canvas 41 x 91cm

This canvas is still a little unfinished, but you can get the general idea of what I'm attempting to do here. It's an interior versus exterior painting, playing with light, transparency and reflections. Unlike the other doors in the loading dock, which are solid slabs of brilliant scarlet, these are translucent fluted sheets that both reveal and conceal the view. 

The "Red square" to the left was the bright scarlet entrance to the passenger walkways allowing access to the cruise ship.
In 20th century art history a famous quote about early abstract art was "The red square is haunting painting", about an oil painting by Kasimir Malevich, one of the originators of the Russian Suprematism movement in abstract painting. The red square has certainly haunted this building! It reminds me how quickly the 'new' and 'modern' passes into history. It is ironic how "Modernism" is now a historic term referring to the art of 50-80 years ago, and the architect of this former wharf has either deliberately or unknowingly raided its vocabulary!

In the background are the two drill rigs of the geophysics team, Coffey and Macquarie Drilling.

For an update on what happened to this canvas, see my post at this blog:'Brilliantly renovated and cut in half'

Barangaroo : May close without warning

Barangaroo : Paintings of the former cruise ship terminal at Wharf 8 

Unfinished oil paintings on canvas, all are 61 x 91 cm
Subject : the interior of the loading dock of the deserted former cruise ship terminal at Darling Harbour Wharf 8.

Poignant reminders of the site's previous function create ironic, even surrealist undertones. This building will be demolished in late August 2010. It had only been opened in July 1999, for the expected influx of cruise ships for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. I remember it being built - in fact I remember its predecessor being built to replace another wharf!

This painting shows the entrance to the loading dock, normally off limits to the public. The door is open to the view north towards the Sydney Harbour Control Tower on the right and the new temporary cruise ship facilities in the marquee to the left.

"Inside the loading dock of the former Cruise ship Terminal at Darling Harbour 8" unfinished oil painting on canvas 61 x 91cm

After 2nd day of painting- only needs finishing touches on masonry and shadows.

I'll have to take this home to do the final flourishes as Cardinal has just parked 3 large excavators right in front of me just as I was about to complete this! I musn't get dust on it when I'm putting on layers of glazes or I'll spend the next fortnight plucking the bits of gravel, pigeon feathers etc off the surface with a pair of tweezers!
Painted from a similar viewpoint as "May close without warning..."

The completed painting: "Inside the loading dock of the former Cruise ship Terminal at Darling Harbour 8" oil painting on canvas 61 x 91cm

"MAY CLOSE WITHOUT WARNING " unfinished oil painting on canvas 61 x 91cm

Day 1 of this painting

The completed painting "MAY CLOSE WITHOUT WARNING "
oil painting on canvas 61 x 91cm

I found the office chair sitting in the middle of the deserted loading dock.

The title "May close without warning" refers to the warnings found on the portal of the fire doors framing the central image.

While I was painting, the electricity and the water was yet to be turned off, and every half hour or so the automatic fire door would grumble a bit and roll forward and back several inches. It was eerie as the building was mostly empty and all the workmen were outside- talk about the 'Ghost in the machine'!
Through the doorway is the Sydney Harbour Control Tower and the marquee used for the temporary cruise ship facilities by Sydney Ports Corporation. The title of this painting could double as my motto! "May close without warning" says it all.
I never need to make jokes - the truth is quite adequately hilarious.