INFLUENCES  Famous international artists I most admire include Cezanne, van Gogh, Klee, Picasso, Pollock, Monet, Kandinsky and Turner.  Generally, I just love post impressionists, abstract expressionists and Indigenous Australian aboriginal art ...  my artistic influences

ADVICE   Many emerging artists and art students ask for my advice on how to approach creativity and what techniques to use.  My advice focuses on how to liberate their innate creativity.  I summarized my advice in "Master's tips" ...
advice to students and emerging artists

GUESTBOOK  "Your paintings arrived undamaged and it was a revelation how much better they look 'in the flesh' as compared to the images on your website.  We are most happy with the 3 paintings purchased. We also would like to compliment you on your professional approach and organising the speedy delivery ..."  read more guestbook entries

LARGER PAINTINGS see a selection of paintings over 100cm in size here.

Preface
As a contemporary Sydney artist, this short manifesto is meant to summarize some of my beliefs about creativity in the visual arts.  These are principles I follow generally and the points I listed are not meant to be a formula or recipe for creating masterpieces.  They are just reminders for myself so as to avoid the usual pitfalls artists encounter.

So, here are my guidelines I follow:

Capture the essentials and ignore the insignificant
Try to capture the essential elements of a visual experience. Ignore the superfluous bits and eliminate unnecessary details.  Focus on the critical aspects of the subject and capture only the significant and lasting characteristics.

Be interested in only creating images which reflect your subjective response to places, or express your feelings and capture the mood of being there.

Abstract art is treated like music
Good abstract painters use the same basic principles as composers of music -- balanced composition, integrity, mood, tone,  colour, texture, rhythm, harmony, contrast, balance, tension, counterpoint and so on.  The objective is the same: creating a mood, arousing a feeling, stirring the emotions.

Venture beyond the comfort zone
Do not be content to settle into a commercially successful and 'easy' style.  Refuse to limit your output to 'much of the same'  thus avoiding the use of a tired old formula.  Chose to move beyond the safe comfort zone.  Search for variety, revel in the excitement of discovering something new and unfamiliar; and also learn to experiment with future possibilities.

Express the joy for living
Let colour help express the thrill of being alive.  Access your sacred gift of intuition and honour your creative spirit. Then you will have a wonderful opportunity  to create meaningful and optimistic images to make people happy.

For me as an artist the real achievement is when people tell me that my artworks speak to them, when my creations touch their hearts and spirit.  When my paintings wash away the sweat and dust of their stressful working days, I am happy.

The essential ingredient
As my abstract artist friend Ted Knerr reminded me, there is another crucial element to creativity.  This is not something you can just conjure up from your head.  To paraphrase him: real art comes from inspiration, and valid art-appreciation comes first from a gut reaction which in turn comes from one's spiritual condition.

Great art can come from the uneducated but quietly enlightened, and bad art from the highly trained but disconnected from the soul; so education can be a plus or a minus, but soul connection is an indispensable prerequisite for an artist's creativity.

 Paul Cezanne

 Gustav Klimt

 Claude Monet

 Marcel Duchamp

 Henri Matisse

 Jackson Pollock

 Andy Warhol

 Willem De Kooning

 Piet Mondrian

 Paul Gauguin

 Francis Bacon

 Robert Rauschenberg

 Georges Braque

 Wassily Kandinsky

 Constantin Brancusi

 Kasimir Malevich

 Jasper Johns

 Frida Kahlo

 Martin Kippenberger

 Paul Klee

 Egon Schiele

 Donald Judd

 Bruce Nauman

 Claes Oldenburg

 Alberto Giacometti

 Salvador Dalí

 Auguste Rodin

 Mark Rothko

 Edward Hopper

 Lucian Freud

 Richard Serra

 Rene Magritte

 David Hockney

 Philip Guston

 Henri Cartier-Bresson

 Pierre Bonnard

 Jean-Michel Basquiat

 Max Ernst

 Diane Arbus

 Georgia O'Keeffe

 Cy Twombly

 Max Beckmann

 Barnett Newman

 Giorgio De Chirico

 Roy Lichtenstein

 Edvard Munch

 Pierre Auguste Renoir

 Man Ray

 Richard Hamilton

 Cindy Sherman

 Edouard Vuillard

 Carl Andre

 Juan Gris

 Lucio Fontana

 Franz Kline

 David Smith

 Joseph Beuys

 Alexander Calder

 Louise Bourgeois

 Marc Chagall

 Gerhard Richter

 Balthus

 Joan Miro