Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021 by Galleries, Townsville City Council

Publisher

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Townsville City Council PO Box 1268 Townsville City, Queensland, 4810 galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au ©Galleries, Townsville City Council, and respective artists and authors, 2020

Publication and Design Development The Hunting House

Curator

Morning Raga on Contemplating Pataya [detail] 1978 Gouache on paper, 32.8 x 35.6 cm Purchased, 1994. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.26.1

Contributing Authors

Image title page and back page

Jonathan McBurnie

Robert Preston, Chris Saines, Ross Searle and Jonathan McBurnie

ISBN: 978-0-949461-48-3 Published on the occasion of Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021

Artist

Robert Preston

Image front

Artwork documentation

Carl Warner. Additional documentation by Chloe Lindo & Rachel Cunningham, Michael Marzik and Robert Parsons. Personal photographs from the collection of the artist.

A Measured Self Portrait 1983 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on unicorn 110 gsm, laid down on Canson WC paper, 185 gsm, CP, 15 x 12.1 cm Collection of the Artist

Acknowledgement of Country

Townsville City Council acknowledges the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun, Bindal, Gugu Badhun and Nywaigi as the Traditional Owners of this land. We pay our respects to their cultures, their ancestors and their Elders – past and present – and all future generations.

Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021

Contents Introduction and Acknowledgements

Foreword 7 Robert Preston: A Life in Art

Preston’s Inner Visions 12 Chronology 154 List of works

160

Introduction and Acknowledgements It is a privilege to present Robert Preston’s first retrospective exhibition, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021, at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. This expansive exhibition celebrates 66 years of outstanding visual arts practice from one of North Queensland’s most accomplished and influential artists, right in time for the gallery’s 40th anniversary.

Preston has had a long and fruitful relationship with Perc Tucker Regional Gallery and it is an absolute honour for me, as both the Creative Director and as an artist, to assemble this unprecedented selection of the artist’s work. Preston has an intimidating oeuvre which took, without exaggeration, some two years to pare down to what is hoped to be a somewhat concise (at more than 200 pieces) overview of an artistic practice of truly monumental achievement. Preston first exhibited in Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in its second year of existence, 1982, in a group show curated by then-Director Norman Wilson, called The Tie Exhibition. Preston would exhibit in two further group shows in 1984 and then 1987 respectively, before his

landmark survey exhibition in 1989, curated by thenDirector Ross Searle. Searle’s selection emphasized Preston’s development of his ‘tropical’ works we now know so well, as well as key works relating to his development as an artist. These works, sometimes referred to by the artist as his ‘fantasy works’ or ‘works of imagination’, were specifically created in response to the life, landscape, light and colour of North Queensland, with a much more vibrant and intense palette than his native England. This is now perhaps his most recognizable and beloved of his many visual approaches. Searle’s comprehensive catalogue has been an indispensable resource for this exhibition from the standpoint of research and locating and identifying work, which is why we have made the decision, with Searle’s blessing, to once again make this publication available in PDF form, via Perc Tucker Regional Gallery’s online platform. Preston’s next solo exhibition at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery was 1992’s Between the Tides, featuring work from a very specific time bracket, 1971-1975, which represented a fundamental pivot in Preston’s work in response to the radical differences between England and his then-new home in North Queensland. Unlike the later works of imagination, which were by their very nature calm and meditative response to the environs of North Queensland, these works grappled with the new conditions of climate and geography, and a pronounced sense of dislocation. There was something unsettling about these works, a sense of apprehension, or even mistrust, of the new landscapes the artist found himself within. Additionally, the works of this time were a deliberate step away from the observational (rather than expressionist) methods espoused by Preston’s alma mater, the Camberwell College of Arts. The works exhibited in Between the Tides were, of course, germane to the later works of imagination in terms of a new approach to scale and intimacy, and an ongoing dialogue with spiritualism and the natural world. In this way, Between the Tides acts as a kind of coda to Preston’s Survey 1989 exhibition.

Preston’s PhD culminated in an exhibition, The Mixing of Memory and Desire, shown at University of Queensland’s Customs House Gallery and in Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in 2000 and 2001 respectively. These assembled works were, as one would expect after close to a decade of rigorous postgraduate study, an incredibly considered demonstration of bravura artistic practice, showcasing works from 1992-2000. Though the exhibition covered an eight-year time period, Preston’s thesis is revealing of his practice on both a micro and macro level. Different aspects of his research can be zoomed in on, or applied across the breadth of his approaches, and along with the writings of Searle, Chris Saines and Anneke Silver of past Perc Tucker Regional Gallery exhibitions, forms an invaluable conceptual scaffold for approaching the artist’s vast oeuvre. Beyond this, Preston has exhibited in many notable group exhibitions at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Umbrella Studio and Sydney Contemporary, however a career-capping retrospective has not been forthcoming, perhaps due to the intimidating challenge of weaving a consistent and holistic curatorial around a practice of such incredibly diverse strands. This challenge formed the core of the curatorial approach to this exhibition, particularly in terms of the practice of collage, and the idea of observation, which have formed the key nexus of theory and practice for the artist for decades, the idea of visual language being a fluid and adaptable phenomenon, akin to music and the written word, and a continued commitment to the rigors of observational drawing.

This exhibition brings together works from Preston’s entire career, including never-before-exhibited student, commercial, journal and compositional works, and key works from the artist’s major exhibitions, drawn from collections private and public, and the artist’s own archive.

Without the generous support of lenders, it is an exhibition which would not have been possible. On behalf of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, I would like to thank Neil & Charmaine Binnie, Shannon Chadwick, James Brown, Asoka Ranjanee Preston, James Cook University Special Collection, Jim Cox, Tony Fitzsimmons, Jane Hawkins, Chris Mann, Ron & Bronwyn McBurnie, Stephen & Marg Naylor, Neil & Bronia Renison, Anneke Silver, Elizabeth Springer & Ken Nevins and Ross Searle & Cheryl Stock. If ever there was evidence of the idea of ‘the artist’s artist’, it is this list of lenders, an attestation to Preston’s level of practice. In a kung fu film, Preston would be the wise master, teaching the youthful and the impatient the virtues of discipline. In a video game, he would be that final, nigh-impossible boss, whom one must conquer in order to complete the game (and yes, I am filing these ideas away for future drawings as I write this). I would like to thank the other contributors for their thoughtful writings contained in this publication. Thank you to Ross Searle for his insightful essay, and for his continuing commitment to Preston’s practice. Thank you to Chris Saines for his wonderful foreword, managing to submit it early among what must surely be one of the busiest schedules in the creative sector. As ever, I am supported by a team of incredibly dedicated and wonderful people, all of which have contributed to this project in some way, but I would be remiss if I did not thank two extraordinary women in particular. Thank you to Jo Lankester, for all of her behind the scenes work in getting

our many stunning works of Preston’s in the Collection of the City of Townsville prepared for the exhibition. And thank you to Chloe Lindo, who has been such a rock through this project, helping me out at every turn. This exhibition would not have been possible without her, as I would have had a nervous breakdown months ago. Lastly I would like to thank the artist for the opportunity of working with him on this exhibition. It has been a true honour and an amazing learning experience for me personally, across a number of levels, including as a gallerist, as a curator and, most notably, as an artist. In order to better understand the intensive nature of Preston’s approach to studio practice, I read about Coldstream and particularly Uglow’s methods of measurement and observation. While it was a timeconsuming practice, the challenge was revealing and invigorating, and resulted for me in the most rapid and substantial levelling up in studio learnings for me since my first life drawing workshop at age 14, not to mention gaining insight into Preston’s own practice, which I know I will continue to learn from in years to come.

It has been a real treat, and the high point of my career as a gallerist. Jonathan McBurnie Creative Director, Townsville City Galleries

Foreword Rather than retrace the trajectory of Preston’s practice, which is addressed elsewhere here, I want instead to look briefly at a small number of works that seem to me emblematic of his artistic project. The earliest, Interior with Chair (1966), recalls the influence of one of his most germinal teachers: the Slade-trained British painter Euan Uglow. From Uglow, Preston learned a system of drawing figures and objects in space attained by taking empirical measurements from the eye to the object of its study. This approach gives the interior study of the artist’s bedsit spatial unity, solemnity and pictorial clarity. In addition to Uglow’s natural approach to perspective, Preston also adopted his teacher’s unyielding, if not always successful, struggle for perfection. He inherited Uglow’s rigorous, studio-based work ethic and, alongside it, the latter’s healthy unease with self-promotion. That spirit of perfectionism comes vividly to life in the modestly scaled but superbly resolved gouache Voyage of a Singing Rock (1981). In its flattening, separating and reordering of North Queensland life forms under an abstracting and refractive lens, this painting is characteristic of the work for which Preston is most widely known. The upraised flat rock creates a chalice-like arena, animated by the interdependent play of lichens, fungi and grasses. Despite the manifest fixedness of the rock and the delicately equipoised ecology it supports, the work firmly holds the latent potential of its title. It’s as if Preston is visually stratifying the micro-environment and the infinitely complex colour palette of a local rock formation that sits proudly above ground. While its surface might ordinarily be immovable and weather worn, here it is replete with colour, light and life. Those same visual qualities apply to Chromatic (2015), a work of remarkable skill in its co-mingling of the warm and cool colours of the spectrum. Not unlike music’s chromatic scale, Preston’s adjacent setting of half tones and complementary colours is not a purely abstract exercise, but one determined to create a vibrant field of colour and, synesthetically at least, sound. Similarly, Shepherds of Arcady (Et in Arcadia Ego). After Poussin (2008) is testimony to his constant return to primary art historical sources for both discipline and inspiration. What

Chromatic says about his interest in the early-twentiethcentury artist Paul Klee, Shepherds of Arcady echoes in the enduring influence of the seventeenth-century painter Nicolas Poussin, whom Preston has studied extensively. Rendered in monochrome drawing and wash, the work is an academically long-established study in delineating form through light and shade; it is also classic Preston, in that more than half the pleasure of making it, I suspect, was in paying homage to the genius of Poussin. This survey represents much of Robert Preston’s distinctive contribution to contemporary Australian art. I last wrote an introduction to his work for a 1992 exhibition at this gallery, focused on a group of works on paper from the early to mid-1970s, and it is a privilege to revisit his career at the same venue almost 30 years later. He has made a profound and lasting contribution to the growth of the visual arts in Townsville and North Queensland as both teacher and artist. He is, in so many respects, highly accomplished for the work the public already knows, but every bit as practiced in the largely — until now — unseen work that fills his immaculate journals, and the countless exploratory and preparatory studies that followed them. Together, they make clear the extent of the thinking involved in developing and refining his work, and the looking that ultimately informs the breadth and quality of his artistic achievement. Almost paradoxically, there are times when a retrospective can work to contract, rather than expand, the artistic trajectory and force of the career it surveys — when the years-long process of forming a distinct artistic vision appears to end where it began, without much moving the course of artistic inquiry forward. That is not the case in this deeply sophisticated yet entirely unpretentious body of work, nor in the long creative journey to which it bears witness. Robert Preston is completely deserving of the honour this retrospective represents. I commend its curator, Jonathan McBurnie, and Perc Tucker Regional Gallery on its timely and thoughtful presentation. Chris Saines CNZM Director, Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art

Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021

Robert Preston’s life’s work, now into its sixth decade, has been calmly dedicated to understanding and elaborating on the mysteries of existence. His meticulous yet unassuming body of work is marked by a searching curiosity, revealed in the classical study of the human figure and the still life, in the patterns of intention inscribed on ancient artefacts, and by his drawing on an interior life abundantly furnished by an uncommon breadth of reading and looking. He is an artist who takes seriously the unending business of art-making. Never content to simply look for ideas or find some efficient method for their translation into the formal language of art, Preston seeks first to come to terms with their grammar and syntax. His approach to art is to form a deep understanding of the subject or object of his interest, then to bring his prodigious powers of observation, abstraction, and imagination to bear on its representation.

Robert Preston: A Life in Art Robert Preston is an elusive figure in Australian contemporary art. Despite being one of the first art lecturers to be appointed to the Townsville College of TAFE in 1974 and enjoying a long career as an educator and studio artist in his adopted city, he is not fully known in the canon of Australian art of the mid-1970s to the present. While unremarkable for artists who chose to work in regional settings where whole careers are overlooked by the art establishment, this lack of esteem impoverishes our deeper understanding of Australian art in all its forms and contexts. The often skewed ‘field of cultural production’ is a problem that French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu analyses in terms of the mechanisms through which some artists are elevated into the canon by the agents i of consecration. Therefore, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery’s retrospective exhibition, ‘Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021’ is especially welcome, since it is more than 30 years since the artist’s survey exhibition was

presented by this same Gallery in 1989. The present exhibition helps to extend our knowledge of this artist as it draws together Robert Preston’s creative development

as an art student in the United Kingdom, his move to Australia and his maturation as a significant artist in Townsville. Born in Yorkshire in 1942 during the height of World War II, Robert Preston’s mother made the decision to relocate from London to the relative safety of northern England for his birth. The war years created major upheaval for families leading to over a million people being evacuated from towns and cities in the United Kingdom. None so more than his own parents who married at the beginning of the war in London but due to his father’s war service were separated as a family until 1946. Although not ‘artistic’ in the accepted meaning of the word, his parents – each in their own way – influenced his nascent pathway to art. ii His mother was culturally adventurous and encouraged in her three sons an interest in music, literature, English history, architecture and the habit of visiting museums and art galleries in London. All three children played musical instruments. In his childhood his father developed considerable skill as a draughtsman and illustrator, and members of his extended family in South America made careers as textile designers in the USA. The subject of his father’s artistic interests stemmed from his other great passion, pursued during his long summer holidays, which was that of natural history. An enthusiasm that was passed on not only to the artist, but also to his two younger brothers. Family excursions to the Kent coast instilled in Preston a love of the coastal littoral which later manifested in his passion for working en plein air. The experience of visiting the then King’s Library of the British Museum (now the British Library) and the National Gallery, London accompanied by his mother were to have

a lasting impact on the young Preston. His immediate emotional response in seeing the Library’s illuminated manuscripts–and realizing that within each page contained a distilled, concentrated vision–was to imagine each page was a world unto itself. From a young age his ‘quick eye’ elevated his wonder of 14 and 15th century Italian altarpieces and icons in the National Gallery, and he delighting in the impact of Carlo Crevelli’s The Vision of the Blessed Gabrielle (1489), in terms of its visual clarity, precision of drawing and finely attuned detail. As a child he not only reacted to the impact of artworks seen in museums and libraries but also to illustrations on the printed page and reproductions including the beautifully produced posters with travel scenes painted by famous English artists such as Norman Wilkinson. He had ready access to illustrated junior natural history books and annuals which in the hands of expert illustrators such as Eric Ravilious and Gertrude Hermes were richly visual.iii Also important were books containing colour reproductions of artist’s impressions of the countryside, the seashore, aspects of nature study, the behavior of the weather and the cycle of seasons throughout the year. Such images established a link between nature, the seasons, and the temporal state. A metaphor that was to surface later in the artist’s mature work in Australia with its synthesis of the visual synergies between time, colour and geometry. As Preston reflects after more than half a lifetime in Australia ‘(he) finds it difficult to remember a time when he did not attempt to translate both his interior and exterior worlds into visual images’.iv By his late teens, a career in art was furthest from Preston’s mind and by 17 he was serving with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps on a four-year deployment at home and overseas. While army life was less than fulfilling, it meant that from an early age he was financially selfsufficient, and the discipline instilled by the army was to be useful in civilian life. On completing military service and considering his future, the possibility of a career as an artist was foremost and he set his course towards further study. His first formal studies were at the Inner London Education Authority’s South London Institute where he first encountered Gerry Hunt a part-time instructor who taught drawing to Robert and his brother, Ilrick. In

1965 as an older student, he took up full-time study at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London. In an interview with Anneke Silver in 1989, Preston reflects on the diverse nature of the teaching at Camberwell.v I had an odd combination of teachers and lecturers in my foundation year especially. One of the most significant influences on my drawing activities was Euan Uglow, one of the post-war generation Euston Road painters and a student of Sir William Coldstream and Victor Pasmore. Uglow introduced me to measured drawing a la Euston Road School, a particularly objective way of looking at reality. At Camberwell Preston was reintroduced to Hunt who he had first encountered at the South London Institute. Hunt was also an exponent of the Euston Road School who was taught by its two founding members. His own artwork reflected the major trends in art of the latter half of the twentieth century and the ‘languages’ of midcentury painting. Although not taught by Hunt, they shared common outlook and the older teacher through informal exchanges, encouraged in Preston an appreciation of the link between art and craft, theoretical knowledge, and practical execution. At Camberwell there were other influences including Donald Jackson, a one-time calligrapher and illuminator to the Queen. He introduced him to methods, materials and techniques of traditional illumination and miniature painting. Preston is particularly indebted to the artistic traditions of the Euston Road School through his teacher Euan Uglow. While the history of the Euston Road School is better known in England, as a descriptor it relates to a movement that reassessed the traditions of European painting by emphasising objective realism.vi A return to ‘tradition’ which was a reaction to the extremism of much avant – garde art of the 1930s, especially Surrealism. Almost certainly Hunt, Uglow and Jackson helped to create a perfect armature for Robert Preston’s career as a teacher and artist.

Coupled with such diverse art school influences, was his deepening intellectual connection to eastern and western mythology, sacred geometry, and the art of ancient cultures. A deep interest that was in part influenced by his early visits to London’s museums, private study and later by world travel. Visionary literature including both prose and poetry was also a significant influence and Preston looked to other artists who shared this concern. Indeed, for artists of his generation, allegory and myth is a live presence in art making. To further his employment prospects, he completed a Diploma in Education at Sussex University in 1972 and taught for a time at Seldown Secondary Boys School at Poole in Dorset. In 1973, he took up an opportunity to further his teaching experience in Australia and was initially posted to Innisfail High School. This was to be a dramatic transition from his native England, and he produced almost no work during this posting. By serendipitous fortune, he was offered a position at the newly established art department in Townsville and at the end of 1974, Preston took up a position at the Townsville College of TAFE, where under Jim Cox, formerly of Queensland College of Art, an art school was established. He was soon joined by Anneke Silver and a fellow British artist, David Blackman. Preston was particularly influential in developing the status of art training in Townsville and its reputation for excellence in drawing. The skills learnt at Camberwell under the guidance of Uglow were to surface in his teaching. The system of measured drawing or measuring by proportion

from a fixed point was to be a major influence on scores of British artists and quite remarkably, found its way to Townsville through Preston’s expert teaching. Once settled in Australia, Preston states ‘that he was at an impasse with his work’.vii He looked for traditions of art here in a new country and all he found were other European and American derivatives. However, it was the close contact with practising artists working in the Art Department, that stimulated a new approach to his adopted country. [Local] artists using abstraction rekindled an interest in formal work. In relation to the objectivity of the work, because of the very strong light under a tropical sun, shadow patterns often manifest themselves more strongly than actual objects; for instance, the kinetic quality of light in water is very strong indeed and minimises the actual shape of objects that are contained in it... This phenomenon is not to be found in the northern European environment.viii Part of the process of disengagement with the work which originated in England was to abandon a palette that relied on black and white and tone in favour of new colour systems. This didn’t come quickly and Preston notes in his PHD thesis that ‘artists may easily become prisoners of their own style’ and as he states ‘nothing could be closer to the truth in the case of [his] own work at this time.ix The ‘bio-morphic’ works which spanned his last years in England and carried on for only two years in Australia, represented the last manifestations of his former artistic concerns. Preston’s first Australian works, created during his initial five years in Townsville, show a particularly strong analytical response to the tropical environment and he made use of compositional systems such as collage by which he constructed images by organising and reassembling component parts of memory. This is achieved by, as it were, by pinning sequences of forms onto a formal structure in a similar way to that in which musical notes or calligraphic units are organised on bar lines or guidelines. This allows me to construct visual sentences,

paragraphs… from a personal vocabulary of forms – their adjustment and placing could be analogous to making grammatical sense of completed work. The forms are locked together into a collection which is a compressed visual equivalent of an environment or phenomena transfigured through the rather heavy veil of memory and generally accompanied by a considerable lapse of time.x

Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021

This period includes the small number of paintings on canvas produced by Preston. The problem as he saw it was to disengage himself from the clichés of perception and to present something of the essence of his new environment. Visual perception – and representations of the visual world – involve mind – stretching paradoxes and logical problem solving that Preston has grappled with constantly on his long journey as an artist. The creative flux that he found himself related partly to him struggling to find his own artistic voice but also in the somewhat mixed reception his work received in Australia. However, as he gained more confidence, the scale of his works increased to such a degree that he won the Townsville Pacific Festival John Raggart Acquisitive Award with ‘Versa-tile pool, no. 1, 1976’ his largest painting to date. Praise from the visiting judge, the artist, John Coburn provided enormous encouragement as did meeting visiting artist Michael Johnson who had been an artist in residence at James Cook University in 1975. Both artists were themselves struggling to produce paintings within the confines and precepts of abstraction. After further experiments with abstraction, digitalising of images and conceptualism, Preston turned to non-European art as his reference point. The transition from his formal abstract works of the mid-1970s to a more narrative style corresponds with his extended study into the mythology of non – western cultures. Regular overseas travel to Thailand, Bali, Mexico, Egypt, and Greece introduced figurative elements into his work. It was on a trip to Thailand in 1977 that Preston encountered new socio-cultural contexts in a tropical environment not unlike that of north Queensland. ‘I saw a lot of art [of Thailand] in general for the first time, which dealt with the tropical environment; its denseness and its colour.xi This was an important realization which contributed to new ways of working with colour, form

and subject which carried on with renewed energy into the 1980s and beyond which culminated in the survey exhibition in 1989. That exhibition presented over 130 works including those created in Townsville which demonstrated his maturation as an artist in Australia.

the realization of two public artworks including a major gateway floor mosaic at Brisbane International Airport, and the conceptualization and fabrication of an artist’s book which lead to the publication of ‘Communion to the Trees’ by Macmillan Art Publishing in 2002.

Teaching has been an important part of his life in Australia from his arrival in 1973 to his retirement in 2004. While the University College of Townsville had been established in 1960, and James Cook University of North Queensland was proclaimed in 1970, it wasn’t until January 1991 that TAFE’s accredited art courses were discontinued and became part of a creative cluster at James Cook University within the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre (COMVAT). A new campus for these developments in the creative arts was established, utilising the former Commonwealth Rehabilitation Centre. The campus housed the Department of Art and Design, the Department of Music, the Tropic Line Research Theatre Company, and the Australian Arts Fusion Centre (AAFC). With the relocation of art training to the university-sector new academic challenges were to occupy Preston’s professional life and he was appointed to the AAFC as lecturer and academic assistant. The Centre was headed by Britishpolymath, Professor Edward Cowie who provided much critical support to Preston. While the Centre sat parallel to College of Visual Arts, each flourished due to their proximity to each other. The undergraduate courses were innovative and included studio-based majors in five named degrees. There was an emphasis on artmaking skills and conceptual development. Art training in Townsville fashioned an industrious and creative learning environment in which making art was integrated with philosophy. Preston quickly turned his mind to upgrading his academic qualifications and completed a Master of Creative Arts in 1991 and then embarked on a PHD. During a period of intense reflection as a doctoral candidate in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, the artist ‘scaffolded’ conceptual concerns through an isegesiscal investigation that revealed much about the diversity of artistic influences that shaped him but also how the natural environment of his adopted country has foregrounded his artistic concerns.xii Outcomes of the research included major exhibitions of artwork in Brisbane and Townsville,

Retirement from academic life brought new challenges and Preston retells these experiences in a recent conversation with the author.

Having left the University in 2004 and completed a PhD in 2005 I came to something of a creative block. As a result, I began to assess much of the work and many of the ideas I had had in the past and made the time to take on commissions. These were wide ranging and included organising and managing an 18-month sculptural restoration project for the city’s Catholic cathedral to undertaking private commissions for paintings. However, my more recent creative activities have to a large extent been focused on reflecting upon unrealised and unfinished projects – basically filling gaps completing things I felt that needed to be done, things which had been left undone and observing the results separated in some cases by a considerable lapse of time.

One project that occupied Preston was a series of compositional studies of Poussin’s 17th century arcadian paintings that he analyzed with great attention to the artist’s use of line and tone. Advocates of Poussin’s style state that drawing is the most important element of his painting and this obliged Preston to re-engage with his own drawing skills. Like Preston other artists have shared this fascination for Poussin including his own teacher at Camberwell, Euan Uglow. Pablo Picasso’s painting, The Rape of the Sabines was executed at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the autumn of 1962 and he borrowed the composition and figures for this work from Nicolas Poussin’s Rape of the Sabine Women (1637-38). It is also speculated that the analytic Cubist experiments of Georges Braque and Picasso were also founded upon Poussin’s example. Such is the importance of continuing debates in art history, that propels Preston’s sense of freedom to pursue these concerns in his studio. The title of the retrospective exhibition speaks to the artist’s multi-layered creative concerns and the curation has been shaped not only to demonstrate the breadth of Preston’s almost 50-years of practice in Australia but also the depth of his enquiry. The foundational experiences of his homeland, coupled with a nuanced artistic visual acuity and rich inner world continue to shape the artist and since returning to full-time studio practice, Preston has a renewed commitment to explore new ideas and approaches. The act of transforming object into subject has provided a critical basis for Preston’s investigations into the natural world which continues to this day. Ross Searle

Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 2.

Robert Preston, Kala: Journeyings Through Colour and Time. (Townsville: James Cook University, 2005), 10.

iii

Ibid., 19.

Ibid., 9.

Anneke Silver, ‘An Interview with Robert Preston’, in Robert Preston Survey Exhibition (Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1989), 10-25.

Ross Searle, ‘Introduction’, in Robert Preston Survey Exhibition (Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1989), 6-8.

vii

Ross Searle, Artist in the Tropics, (Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1991), 53.

viii

Ibid., 53.

Preston, 2005, 83.

Searle, 1989, 6-8.

Searle, 1991, 53.

xii

Preston, 2005: see the illuminating breakdowns of influences the artist included in the appendices of his thesis.

Preston’s Inner Visions The challenge of writing about Robert Preston’s many approaches to practice is the very challenge presented when curating a retrospective around the artist; that is, diverse modes of artistic exploration, complex and personal modes of inquiry, and of the vast richness of his output. For an artist whose work is often incredibly detailed in every level of its planning and execution, Preston has amassed a considerable and diverse oeuvre which is not easy to summarise so neatly. Throughlines are not necessarily obvious upon first glance, especially when works are not arranged thematically; colour study beside still life beside landscape beside abstracted selfportrait. These challenges formed the backbone of the curatorial rationale, and a fantastic, monolithic (and beautiful) wall of which to push up against. On first inspection, Preston’s work is beautifully rendered, closely observed and carefully considered. This is a universal constant within his work; while there are obvious technical leaps and bounds made over time, Preston’s attention to detail is clear right from the outset. However, to move forward in a meaningful way, deciphering the artist’s dense visual codex in parallel

to the thematic profundity of the work itself, a sort of understanding, or at least resignation to, the fractal patterns within the micro and the macro scale of the cosmos, is required. Zooming in and out, one begins to notice connections between certain series of work, yes, but also between the spaces around the works, leading up to and informing the works; studies, sketches, writings and musings. While Preston is far from being restricted to one medium, it is drawing that best summarises his initial forays of visual inquiry, but it is collage that best summarises its conceptualisation, if not its finish. Preston’s work, like many artists, progresses in a cyclical, but forward-moving, fashion. Iterative. As with a surveyor’s wheel, certain points are touched upon at regular intervals, but the artist has moved forward in time and space. So rather than presenting works chronologically (as in this publication), a thematic breakdown of the exhibition instead offers an alternative way of reading and experiencing Preston’s work, with items plucked out of their respective moments in time and reconsidered along their thematic relatives. Despite the artist’s many approaches, all of his work can be broken down into three primary (and usually dovetailing) categories; observational, abstraction and imaginational. This sequence in itself alludes to the artist’s process of artistic exploration in that (generally speaking), the artist moves from one step to the next. In this way, Preston’s Works of Imagination are the culmination of all of the earlier studio inquiry, a realisation we came to after many discussions about the exhibition and what we would include. My somewhat diabolical (and perhaps regrettable, at least in terms of my own mental health) attitude toward this was to include a little bit of everything. While an exhibition comprising purely of Preston’s Works of Imagination, or landscapes, would have certainly been enjoyable and well-received exhibitions, it was felt that even in such a unified curatorial, something vital would be missing. Instead we decided that a kitchen sink approach would be the only way to do such an inquisitive, inventive and curious mind justice. The idea of ‘studio research’ has been slowly fleshed out since the early days of Postmodernism in an attempt to describe and legitimise the increasing need of visual artists

(among others) to justify this activity as an important strand of research, or more specifically, research as a ’scorable’ commodity, able to be translated into research ‘points’ to attract further funding. As it is with most other attempts to quantify creativity, this appears more than a little tin-eared. Rarely is the institution-bound visual artist interested in the rigmarole of the peer-reviewed journal and all its trappings. Preston, however, can be held up as the best possible exemplar of real, actual, studio research. Reading his thesis, one comes to understand that his impressive end results are the synthesis of a sustained period of investigation and serious, studious work, and that unlike many other visual artists’ thesis outcomes, Preston’s final destination really could not have been arrived at any other way. Particularly in the context of Postmodernism, which couched the time of the artist’s postgraduate study, many artist’s relationships to theoretical concerns required assumed an inexplicable dominance over postgraduate research into visual arts. Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault and Guattari in particular seemed to preside over research of the era, unfortunately forming a kind of paint-by-numbers theoretical framework to be inserted when needed by the artist to beef up a concept, instead of exploring the hard yards necessary to develop any kind of artistic muscularity or rigor. Most often, this is still the case, and this is one of the things that makes Preston such an exciting artist. He is the exception to the rule. In this way, it becomes apparent that the most effective way to contextualise Preston’s work is by placing him, if not against something, then in stark relief to it. While Preston’s body of work largely takes place within the dying days of Modernism and then against the early exuberance of Postmodernism, and while it shares the occasional virtue (an affinity for collage as a conceptual underpinning, in particular), it is largely separate from its contemporaneous goings-on. This may be an unavoidable reality of Regionalism in Australia (a kind of double-Regionalism when considered against the artistic hubs of Europe and, until recently anyway, the United States), but this obscurity is also protective, keeping at bay the distractions of many contemporary artists, allowing more time for intensive focus.

While this publication has been ordered chronologically, this is a different approach to the thematic groupings of the exhibition. We felt it more beneficial in terms of providing a broader experience of Preston’s reflecting his diverse interests, and revealing broader themes and connections from a holistic distance, clarifying the cyclical but forwardmoving momentum of Preston’s creative practice. This is not unlike Preston’s own PhD thesis, itself a thoughtful reflection over artistic processes, which includes fascinating appendices comprising of lists, flow charts and breakdowns of the many, many lines of inquiry taken throughout. ‘The challenge of this particular research was less to focus upon a schema of work with a single conceptual focus than to attempt a complex synthesis of an artistic lifetime of divergent pathways’i, explains Preston’s introduction. The following sections briefly touch on the broad categories used to build the exhibition, which are derived from approach rather than category. These sections are obviously interrelated, and often dovetail with one another, but all fit within a kind of pyramidal system of inquiry, beginning with the arts associated with observation; with particularly close attention paid to form and measurement. At a certain point, observation gives way to abstraction (and here I must note we very much refer to abstraction as a verb; that is, an artistic process, rather than an idiom), which is the moment Preston changes theoretical gears, moving away from the meditative mode of close study and into a much more playful, experimental, and sometimes even iconoclastic frame of mind takes over. This tends to be where a more conscious manipulation, rather than recording, of the elements of design such as colour and tone take place. I consider Preston’s so-called Works of Imagination the culmination of the investigations of the two prior stages, yet still separate enough to warrant their own distinctive consideration. Like much of Preston’s work, these are greater than the sum of their parts. I have written elsewhere that when two aircraft smashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, somebody was there to draw it. Thousands recorded the unfolding events on mobile devices, documenting the happenings from a multitude of angles, images which were then disseminated to

millions, however only one thought to draw it from life, from sight, in real time. Brooklyn-based Gary Panter went to the rooftop of his studio and made five drawings in his sketchbook, documenting the towers on fire after the first impact, the second tower falling in a cloud of debris, and three drawings of the immediate aftermath, and each is annotated with the time and quickly-scrawled notes. The world watched this catastrophe through thousands of mediated camera-eyes, through a maelstrom of media sensation that was instant, indistinguishable and ultimately disposable. In direct contrast to this, five drawings were executed that elicit responses, not just through the response to the event, but through the artist’s idiosyncratic interpretations. Drawing is an economical means for describing, pre-fitted with a voice that comes unfiltered through the intuitive hand through the process of observation. Similarly sprawling and inquisitive, Panter’s work could not be more different from Preston’s in terms of execution, and yet their approach to image making is remarkably similar in terms of a constant and shifting interrogation of perception, and what an active questioning of what it means to look and it means to see, in the context of artistic practice. As demonstrated through that old life drawing studio go-to, the blind contour drawing (for the uninitiated, this involves making a drawing while looking only at the subject, rather than moving from the subject to the paper), the process of drawing has a nuanced relationship with both sight and memory. Outside of the blind contour drawing (which is, paradoxically the only way to draw without temporary moments of ‘blindness’ while looking away from the subject), drawing depends upon many of these moments of the remembered subject as the artist looks away from the subject, usually to make a descriptive mark on the paper. While this in itself is not remarkable, it demonstrates the act of drawing in the context of a complex chain of processes, coordinated between the eyes, the brain and the hand. Observational work forms a key building block for Preston’s practice, and extends from the heuristic perceptual pursuits of life drawing, still life and en plein air right into the artist’s most abstract work.

Observational drawing may seem a difficult idea to unpack via a Postmodern lens (undoubtably to be labelled, scandalously, as passe, unlike a veritable pantheon of inaccessible and often dull video and performance works of the era), however, there are many arguments for its importance, particularly in, of all places, physics and neuroscience. The so-called observer effect brings into contention a drawing-related paradox, brought about considering the act of drawing itself. While the observer effect (a proven phenomena whereby instruments used to observe and measure physical phenomena actually have a small but clear effect on the measurements), is being taken out of context here, it does offer some theoretically interesting grist, particularly in terms of observational drawing and painting.

Anybody who has participated in even the most casual life drawing or still life session will know that observation is a skill to be honed, and that one cannot count on the subject, even when an inanimate object, staying still. Poetic examples of the nuances of observation can be found in artists such as Lucian Freud, whose works became increasingly concerned with time as a key aspect of observation, with weeks often spent with models under close inspection, accruing hours, imbricated within skeins and clumps of paint. Closer to Preston’s wheelhouse, Euan Euglow, a notable teacher of Preston’s, represents a school of observation quite separate to Freud, dedicated to the practice of measurement, rather than accretion. In this mode of

working, accretion still occurs, but rarely includes the bulk and surface of Freud’s oils. Rather, it is an accretion of measurements, reference points and plum lines, both on the subject, and (in the case of Uglow) the background setting. Uglow, who himself had adopted many of the observational techniques of William Coldstream, an artist whose rigorous dedication to observational work was far more aligned with mapping and measurement than, for example, realism or objectivism, and remained a lifelong sceptic of abstraction. While Coldstream’s influence is also to be found in Preston’s work, this is an interesting comparison, for Preston’s approaches to abstraction, as we will see, are often still quite grounded in observational practices, quite removed from the various artistic projects of Pollock et al, and far more aligned with the montage techniques pioneered the Dadaists (and thus a prevailing relationship with print media made possible by technological innovations of the industrial age), or extensions from the principles of design, such as gridded colour studies, pattern design and other imbrications of abstract forms. Once again, it becomes useful to consider Preston in relief to what was going on in contemporary art of the day; like Uglow and Coldstream, Preston stands out not necessarily as an individualist or rebel, but somebody unafraid to forge their own path. ‘Although a principal reason for making studies from observation is to develop and increase both visual memory and experience, several other important issues arise; one of these is concerned with the prosed of visual agreement and the other with the raising of individual levels of awareness or insight with regard to the object (or phenomenon of the study over a period of time.’ii Some of the earliest works included in the Inner Visions selection are closely observed still life and landscape studies, but such works dot the artist’s entire career. The artist points out that such work is made in an inquisitive fashion, noting that the intention of these is to gain insight, an inner response, rather than a simple representation. iii Preston’s various studies made in situ at various points along the Ross River (c.2011) are masterful examples of such dedication to craft paying visual dividends. Made over

a number of visits to each site, these gouache works are remarkable in their subtlety in light and colour. A lesser artist might polish these works further, pushing them into the realm of the photoreal, but of course this would defeat the point of making the works in situ. As Chris Saines said to me while discussing the exhibition ahead of writing his foreword, ‘If you saw one of these on their own, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is an artist who has been making works like this his entire life’. Of course, en plein air is but one avenue of exploration for Preston. While Preston’s work reaches far beyond drawing as a practice, I believe that, like collage (more on this later), it frames the artist’s work in both practical and theoretical aspect, and informs the way he approaches his work, from the lightest of compositional thumbnails right down to the most densely informational and nuanced series. For Preston there is no angst over drawing as an autonomous artistic discipline, as opposed to its contingent uses, or around the place of collage in the digital world. While drawing remains associated with traditions of preparatory process or as a pedagogical tool, it is no longer limited to these discourses.iv In recent years. many high-profile exhibitions focused on drawing have found their way into major institutions. Nonetheless, rigorous investigation into changes in the discipline, specifically in relation to mass and digital cultures, has been less common.v Drawing remains an important investigative tool for the conceptualisation and execution of visual ideas, as an act that is deeply ingrained in many image-making processes. The historical relationships drawing have enjoyed with other forms enriches, but complicates its investigation. The history of drawing is positioned within contemporary art as interdisciplinary, and historically subject to the preparatory and educational requirements of painting, sculpture and printmaking. Preston’s practice employs drawing as a primary and vital method of investigation through studio practice, building on many of the discipline’s foundational and educational conventions, yet applying its increasingly universal language to other media.

Drawing is an appropriate descriptor in reference to much of Preston’s work as an inclusive umbrella term because it connotes a discipline, practice and process that is connective and amorphous in nature, inclusive of these many and varied processes within his work. Drawing was a core foundation to Preston’s own art education, a consistent and reliable pillar of his practice. Central to the theory of drawing is the notion of the sketch, which conceptually anchors the discipline. The tension between incompleteness and resolution is one of the core conceptual considerations of drawing, and in some ways, a tension that can be found within Preston’s work. Often, drawing is explored conceptually as an act of unrepeatability, dependent upon the intuitive nature of the drawing act, as well as the spontaneity the discipline can engender within a broad spectrum of conditions. However, Preston’s studious and measured approach challenges this reading of drawing, leading one to wonder whether Preston may indeed be the most persuasive example of an artist who can disprove this theory, at least without magnification. Even Preston’s most refined

works do not operate under the misapprehension that they are ‘realist’ in the post-photographic sense of the term; no matter how rigorously anchored to the logistics of measurement and objectivity they are, they still embrace and celebrate the qualities unique to its medium, a refreshing change from the increasingly-pervasive world of the Uncanny Valley. Deanna Petherbridge discusses what she calls ‘The Persistent Cult of the Sketch’ in her book The Primacy of Drawing (2010). The chapter investigates the notion that the sketch, which has remained a fairly consistent concept and practice throughout history, as demonstrative of the thought processes of the artist, attributable to the talent or genius of the artist in question.vi The notion of the sketch implies an intuitive process of problem solving, taking place between the idea and its fabrication. vii Petherbridge notes the duality of the sketch, which prefigures its own destruction but is miraculously preserved because of its potential.viii Tracing the term ‘sketch’ to ancient Greece, Petherbridge notes that Pliny the Elder’s observations on sketching were remarkably modern in their understanding of the artist’s marks as traces of the thought process.ix The term has since become commonly used in the context of other disciplines, as well as to forms outside the visual arts, such as literature, mathematics and performance, but remains consistent in its meaning.x The sketch functions as both a concept and an action of cognition, allowing freedom from the imperative of mimesis in order to encourage spontaneity and exploration. xi The self-affirming value of the sketch can thus be applied to a multitude of contexts, but remains true as a cognitive process of revelation and improvisation.xii

Included in the exhibition are some of Preston’s early life drawings, which are interesting visual records not necessarily in terms of visual finish (though there are some beautiful

passages of drawing evident), but rather of demonstrations of Preston’s image making process, raw examples of his early and increasingly sophisticated system of measurement. Preston’s intensive observational studies extend well beyond objects, and into representation itself. Throughout the years, Preston has returned to several artistic touchstones, perhaps most notably Poussin and Klee, but others, including Botticelli, Michelangelo and Goya, have appeared over the years. While the close examination and emulation of Botticelli and Poussin are both excellent ways of honing one’s craft in specific ways, Preston’s interest in the ever-inquisitive Klee extends well beyond mere technique, and into the more amorphous hybrid of thinking and execution that is image making. Like Preston, Klee was a restless image maker, whose vast array of techniques, media and visual approaches was always in service to the image itself. Also like Preston, Klee’s work offers many visual pleasures up close, but the artist’s oeuvre must be considered in a macro view, with its many intricate, ever-extending creative tendrils, to fully appreciate. Some works operate as clear homage to Klee, a way of breaking up repetition in the studio, a deliberate step away from certain ways of working, such as his chromatic studies (Preston’s Chromatic Study: Piper’s Lookout, Winter (2015) bears a striking resemblance to Klee’s Blossoming (1934), yet this is an evocation rather than a reproduction; what better way to blow out the studio cobwebs than a non-representational exercise in craft, form and detail such as this?). More broadly, however, Klee has acted as a permissive force in the studio, allowing Preston to follow certain approached that may be considered iconoclastic by other artists, yet giving him the freedom to experiment, to modulate, and to break up certain ideas before committing to the final, painstaking work. Attention to Preston’s media lists offer some insight

into the artist’s work as iterative; like Klee, works are not merely executed, and are often laid down, pasted, collaged, transferred, mounted, before they find their final forms. 1635 saw the opening of the first state-supported art academy, the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy and Company for the Arts of Drawing). The founding of the academy marked a shift in the education and industry of the fine arts, with drawing a central focus. Academies would teach the value of drawing to students of sculpture and painting through copying prints and plaster copies of classical sculptures, before drawing from life, and finally moving on to drawing from live models after a year or so. Analytical thinking was especially important to understand the representation of volume, tone, and weight. With this grounding in tradition and rigour, the Academies of Paris would become not only a bastion of the importance of the sketch, but lively debate over its role. This debate would spark massive change in the late years of the academies, of line versus colour, centred largely two figures of 17th Century art; the French classicist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and the more florid Rubens. Poussin and Rubens are subject to a notable inversion in their use of the sketch. Although Rubens made delicately-rendered drawings as presentation works, it is his preparatory oil sketches that exemplify the gestural language of the sketch. Executed swiftly vigorously, Rubens’ preparatory oil sketches encompass a linear freedom that would eventually influence the Impressionists. In contrast, Poussin, whose cool drawings are executed simply with ink and wash, did not use the sketch as an indefinite, exploratory exercise, so much as the fast description of a fully-formed composition.xiii Poussin’s cartoons still exemplify a firm grasp on composition to rival, say, Botticelli in flourish, but furthered by his advanced understanding of tone and depth of his (subsequent) day. Chiaroscuro was also a significant step away from drawing as a purely diagrammatic, illustrative or pictorial representation. Preston’s large scale Poussin study (Compositional Drawing, Dance in Honour of Pan (After Poussin) (2013-14)) is executed in a mode closer to chiaroscuro, and unlike his other Poussin studies, the work is more overtly an

exercise in observational measurement, with the small notches and reference points left visible. Note also the fragmentary nature of the composition, with the missing sections on the bottom left and right of the piece. In recent years, Preston has completed several involved studies of certain key works of Poussin, executed in the grisaille idiom. While today, a grisaille may be mistaken for chiaroscuro, a broader term for the use of light and dark, grisaille is more specific, executed in monochromatic combinations of oil, ink or tempera rather than the bright, flat, planar colour and design of the late Gothic, which we associate with artists such as Giotto. Washes and fine pen hatching and cross-hatching, usually on paper, pushed the light and dark tones further forward and back, giving the figures more weight and depth. Grisaille was often rendered for its own sake (in much the same way Preston approaches it), as well as a kind of original or artist’s proof for a relief sculptor, engraver or underpainting apprentice, or a patron’s more affordable alternative to a full-colour work. Grisaille is a precursor to the interdisciplinary nature of much contemporary drawing, operating as a hybrid of the rapidly-developing Venetian and Florentine methods of representational painting, and the linear economy of Northern printmaking. Coupled with Poussin’s highly considered compositions comprising of complex arrangements of figures and his linear economy, Preston’s Poussin studies are an intensive masterclass in close observation, as well as translation; the compositions are highly faithful to Poussin’s originals, yet Preston’s finish (particularly in Les Bergers D’Arcadie No. 1 (1628 – 9) After Poussin (2007) and The Triumph of Pan, 1685 – 6, After Poussin (2008)) is developed to a highly polished finish, as rich in tonal depth as they are formally challenging.

Collage forms a key component of Preston’s conceptual stage, and in many ways best exemplifies the artist’s multifaceted approach to practice; while the artist is meticulous, nothing is sacred

in terms of securing a desired result. There is usually something to be done if a work is not quite finished, whether it be as simple as laying a small study down on a more durable paper, or cutting entire sections away in order to be completed with the appropriate level of finish. One look at many of Preston’s media notes will give the casual viewer some insight into his processes (we have included these notes for the purposes of art work details in terms of their revelatory nature; perhaps you can reverseengineer some of his creative backflips this way, as intended). In this way, collage forms a kind of uniform media hybridity throughout the artist’s oeuvre, yet the oeuvre itself is of such a finish that collage is rarely overtly present. This is ironic in terms of the artist’s resistance to settling upon any one discipline, a shining example of the freedoms allowed by Postmodernism, yet setting him completely apart from the vast majority of artists working within the Postmodernist paradigm.

A Collage unites in a composition, elements which originate from the […] environment, bear traces of modification, and are therefore socially mediated. Collage transposes perceived reality, as seen through the filter of civilization, into an artistic world ripe for reconstitution. There is nothing real that might not become an element in collage.xiv Roxana Marcoci’s Comic Abstraction: Image Breaking, Image Making (2007) analyses the practices of artists whose work occupies territory that be so simply categorized as art or comics without implicating the other. Aware of the changes and innovations made possible by interdisciplinary practice, the artists of Comic Abstraction display an iconoclastic bent, and operate in the slippage between the borders firmly established in MoMA’s earlier (and much derided in certain circles) High and Low exhibition. While the exhibition is already somewhat dated in its attitudes toward the gatekeeping of established cultural institutions and their own designation of status, the exhibition does retain a certain visual crispness owing to the selected artist’s relationship with abstraction being rooted in their use of graphics and printed matter as source material. Despite the title of the exhibition and accompanying catalogue, not all of the artists use comics as raw material, but in terms of their omnivorous approach to image making, there are some strong parallels with Preston’s own modes of working, particularly in terms of collage and abstraction. Marcoci’s catalogue essay outlines her intention to contextualise the chosen artists’ work historically, citing Joseph Leo Koerner’s text The Reformation of the Image (2004), in which Koener describes the iconoclastic acts of the Protestants, destroying sacred Catholic images, as treating the representational beliefs of the Catholics as real, and therefore proving their power as objects, making the Protestants image-makers themselves. xv The act of iconoclasm, of image-breaking, homage, reference, deconstruction, critique and appropriation of imagery, then, becomes a form of image-making in its reconstruction or assimilation into the new whole, which very much aligns with Preston’s own approach to abstraction, which is favoured as a pictorial strategy

rather than an end in itself. It is in this way that Preston’s work is important in the context the post-digital world, not at a proponent of its formless mass, but as divergent from it, yet fluent in its vast, fractal abstractions. Some of Preston’s earliest forays into abstraction occurred by way of an emotional translation of the light and colour of landscape. Works such as The TarnEltham Common (1967) saw the artist breaking up the pictorial elements of the image into broadly brushed passages of watercolour over a lightly penciled map of the image. Such works indicate the artist’s willingness to experiment with mark making, and while certainly grounded with a basis in representation, these works appear far more concerned with capturing the emotive tenor of experiencing the place, rather than the objective reality of the place itself, splitting the difference between the Coldstream school with that of the Impressionists, marking the artist’s stance on representation itself, and unknowingly flagging the more involved and sophisticated visual lexicon, with its fluid relationship to both representation and abstraction, to come. Abstraction would inform Preston’s approaches to landscape for some time yet, and perhaps never more radically than the works created upon his relocation from London to Innisfail, created in a burst of artistic curiosity between 1971 and 1974, many of which were exhibited in the 1992-3 exhibition, Between the Tides, at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. Where his earlier landscapes may have tempered a certain calm Englishness with a visual hunger for exploration and innovation, this surrealistic series was a far more expressive response to the radically different climes of North Queensland, and owed more to Palmer than to Constable. The ink drawings heightened the shapes and darkness of rainforest, pushing both into dense, organic tendrils which appeared to be illustrations of movement as much as form. As the artist writes, ‘The light was acutely different and, in concert with it the qualities of shade and colour, indeed the very atmosphere itself. No more washed, pale blue skies in springtime, balmy languorous summer evenings, ethereal mists of autumn or short, dim,

icy winter days and, gone with them were the apparently subtle nuances of a soft and ever-changing light’.xvi

Preston’s commercial work, a selection of which is included in Inner Visions, offers a fascinating glimpse into the artist’s creative impulses and the type of graphic territory of image making (and breaking) that would soon become more prominent. These commercial works include a couple of comic pages, themselves prompting a serious ‘what if’ around the medium. Surely if there was a medium that could contend with Preston’s restless imagination and reward his need for experimentation with hybrid form, it would be that of comics. While upon first viewing, Preston’s early commercial works included may appear visually jarring or out of character, these have been selected to demonstrate certain aspects of the artist’s practice more clearly, particularly in regard to his constant visual evolution. Preston’s work, which is in itself a sophisticated hybrid of narrative, pictorial and sometimes linguistic and/or alphabetic mechanics, was readily adaptable to the pre-computerised commercial world and to see his considerable talents, particularly for the simulation and mastery of seemingly unconnected styles and techniques, put to such uses adds another register, previously un-exhibited, to the discussion and study of Preston’s already-formidable oeuvre. Like many British children of his generation, comics formed a key part of the cultural diet, and Preston cites Eagle (1950-1969) as a

seminal influence. Later, certain artists of the British Pop Art scene would take this postwar fascination with mass culture to new lengths, assimilating the bold, mechanised graphics of the USA through the filter of a particularly British sensibility. Peter Blake and David Hockney would have a profound influence upon Preston through their smooth lingual vacillation between formal, stylistic and indexical representation and seemingly limitless media and idiom ambidexterity respectively. Both frequently touch upon the complex relationships between representation, abstraction and mass culture, which is woven into Preston’s work in subtle ways. As we see in a sampling of Preston’s early work represented in the exhibition, right from the outset the artist demonstrates a chameleonic aesthetic, seemingly able to change registers between the visual styles and conventions of comics, advertising and illustration with little friction. Such works presented in Inner Visions have been selected by virtue their aesthetic interchangeability, demonstrating the artist’s versatility. Despite being a work made commercially for the purposes of advertising, a work such as Double Page Spread Magazine Illustration for ‘Eating Out at Lyons’ (1969) is an able demonstration of the artist’s flawless reconstitution of his own abiding fascination with typeface and script, simultaneously emulating the context-specific visual tics of the moment, and all the while foreshadowing his future flair for geometric precision. Preston’s Design Rough for a Record Cover (1969) likewise sees collage, a favoured approach to image making, applied to explore a commercial project, demonstrating how imbricated digital technologies have become into every facet of visual culture, and simultaneously what has been lost in its monocultural wake.

As this exhibition establishes, Preston’s oeuvre includes many avenues of investigation of diverse media, technique, aesthetics and thinking, but it is his works of imagination, sometimes referred to the artist as fantasy works,

that these many paths often lead. To follow the many lines of inquiry of the artist’s practice is a complex business, but few would dispute that his Works of Imagination are the culmination of these many investigations. The artist characterises these investigations as ‘a long-held belief of overarching interconnectedness between the potential implicit in ostensibly creative events and an ability to recognize and respond to xvii that potential fairly directly.’ Text, or more specifically type and script, remains an important part of understanding Preston’s approach to image making, and the works of imagination as the culmination of not only Preston’s many artistic explorations, but his interests that exist outside of the studio, most notably literature and music.xviii Preston’s lifelong interest in typeface is a key component informing his work and his approaches to abstraction. The illuminated manuscript may be the single artform most responsible for sending Preston along his own personal artistic road. Preston describes his first experience of the form, at age eleven in the British Museum, as ‘epiphanic […] at the time, it was difficult to imagine that any human hand could possibly have created any of them’xix, inspiring the young artist to attempt books of his own. Two of these are included as a key part of Inner Visions as the artist’s earliest fully realised works, miniature versions of the Book of Genesis I-XX (1953-4) and the Book of Jonah and the Book of Micah (1955), both of which point toward an enduring fascination with text.

This is perhaps best exemplified in Preston’s seminal series, Communion to the Trees I – VII (1998 – 2000), an evocative interpretation of parts of philosopher and linguist Edmond Bordeaux Szekley’s translation of the Essene Gospel of John. This is in itself a widely disputed translation in both historical and theological circles, but one cannot doubt the poetry and visuality of the text itself, providing a rich and allegoric basis for the series of work, something that the artist had struggled to find.xx Communion would become one of Preston’s most sustained and masterful efforts, exploring ‘notions of visionary, revelatory, spiritual, altered-state, mythical and shamanic experiences, together with a sense of interplay between ordinary and non-ordinary reality’.xxi Rather than simply creating accompanying illustrations to the text (for which Preston invented a bold and elegant typescript), he created the pages as whole units with their own visual balance and harmony, not unlike comics. While, for an example, an illustrated book usually comprises of one part text, one part image, they are usually quite separate. Comics, however, are a hybridised form, and one part is more (though not necessarily wholly) indivisible from the other, requiring a much more considered composition which takes in the mechanics of reading as much as the narrative itself. Communion requires at least as much considering, leaning as it does into a selfcontained world of twilight esoterica; the text and images can both be admired on their own, but together they form a greater whole through their visual and thematic unity. Preston’s Works of Imagination are striking in their fantastic imagery, finding an evocative balance between their simplicity and complexity, both of which are in paradoxical evidence. This point of disruption is where Preston’s work is often situated, through its hybridization of image and text (as in the Communion to the Trees), or his frequent use of collage as a tool for composition, a studio process which allows dynamic visual slippage between media, or a theoretical framework informing the artist’s entire approach to making. Much like the Derridian signature, Preston’s oeuvre is a complex set of repeated motifs that are in themselves imperfect, insofar as they are made by hand, and cannot be repeated identically. The irony here, of course, is Preston’s complete mastery of media, in

particularly those associated with what the artist refers to as ‘rendering’, a term which has in recent years been almost completely subsumed by the digital practitioner. These works have evolved over the years, but the early examples of which arrived almost fully formed, as inspired responses to the discovery of the specific and localised responses to the life, colour and light of the tropics, in the work of both Thai and Balinese traditions.xxii These representations of flora and fauna were a revelation to Preston, and I believe a turning point in the artist’s approach to the natural world, in many ways resolving the tumultuous, somewhat haunted works of the 1971-75 period. To the artist’s still very English sensibilities, the approach to figuration and perception represented in the works seen in Bali and Thailand would have been a distinctive step away from the teachings of measured observation of the Camberwell school. I read this as the beginning of Preston’s Works of the Imagination, a point where the artist brought his own sensibilities and applied them to a more iconographic and even pictographic sensibility. Works such as Morning Raga on Contemplating Pataya (1978) and Journeys into Silent Ponds (1979) are a significant departure from Preston’s first artistic responses to life in North Queensland, offering a more harmonious interpretation to the world of the tropics. His Works of Imagination, as the artist could eventually come to call them, would evolve over time, but the core elements were established in the late 1970s, leaving four decades (and counting) to innovate them into increasingly elaborate and elegiac and mythical narratives. Upon reflection, what strikes me is the slow movement of these works into a twilight world, which in itself presents a rich variety of representational challenges, particularly in regard to light and colour. Preston’s approach to these crepuscular sensations is incredibly evocative of the sounds, thoughts and feelings of the coming night. Just as a night swim is a different experience to its daytime equivalent (and nightswimming is a much more common practice, I imagine, in tropical climates) these works exist in a liminal reality with its own inherent rules and conventions.

These works are Preston at his most spiritual and aspirational, in terms of reaching for a truth that is perhaps out of reach, or at least out of reach verbally. Linguistically, pictorially and aesthetically, very little is beyond Preston’s reach, and what is is probably not worth knowing. Articulating any further would serve little purpose at this point, and I would encourage others to soak in this work, breathe it in, and respond in other ways, as I will, through creative means. A composition, performance, art work or narrative would seem a far more appropriate response to this body of work than an essay, and would almost certainly do a better job in justifying it, explaining it, or interpreting it, just as Preston has done through his own work. Jonathan McBurnie

Robert Preston, Kala: Journeyings Through Colour and Time. (Townsville: James Cook University, 2005), 5.

Ibid., 193.

iii

Ibid., 185.

Deanna Petherbridge, the Primacy of Drawing. (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2010), 3.

v Daina Augaitis, For the Record: Drawing Contemporary Life. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2003, 14. vi

Petherbridge, 2010, 26.

vii

Ibid., 28.

viii

Ibid., 29.

Ibid., 28.

Ibid., 26-28.

Ibid., 31.

xii

Ibid., 36.

xiii

Ibid., 38.

xiv

Franz Mon, cited in Preston, 2005, 96-98.

Roxana Marcoci, Comic Abstraction: Image Making, Image Breaking. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007), 9.

xvi

Preston, 2005, 56.

xvii

Ibid., 9.

xviii

Ibid., 11.

xix

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 340-342.

xxi

Ibid., 340.

xxii

Ross Searle cited in Preston, 2005, 83-84.

The Book of Jonah and the Book of Micah 1955 Poster paint, gouache, 10 x 7 cm Collection of the Artist

The Book of Genesis Chapters 1 – 16 1953 Poster paint on paper, 6.8 x 5.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Portrait Sketch of a French Girl; Francesca 1964 Pencil, heightened with white gouache, 15 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist

Roof gardens, Blanca – Spain 1965 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 30.6 x 16.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

Left Gunhill – Overy Staithe, Norfolk 1967 Pencil and watercolour on sketchbook paper stuck down to Arches Aquarelle, HP, 300 gsm, 22.3 x 17.2 cm Collection of the Artist Right The Tarn – Eltham Common 1967 Pencil and watercolour on sketchbook paper, mounted on Lanaquarelle, HP, 300 gsm, 22.3 x 17.2 cm Collection of the Artist

Figure Drawing from a Cast 1966 Pencil on paper, 35.5 x 24 cm Collection of the Artist

Top Bentwood (Ilric’s Chair-Bedroom at No. 13) 1966 Pencil on paper, 10.6 x 9.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Bottom Breakfast Table (Ilric and My Cups at No.13), London 1966 Pencil on paper, 5.4 x 11.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

Bentwood (Ilric’s Chair-Bedroom at No. 13) 1966 Pencil on paper, 10.6 x 9.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

Top Masque of the Red Death 1966 Coloured inks, shell gold, 29 cm x 22.5 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Early Sketchbook 1966 – 67 Gold leaf, ink, watercolour, 29 x 46 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

Top Lettering and Calligraphy Exercises 1965 – 66 Pencil on paper, 29 x 46 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Bottom Museum study from a 14th Century French manuscript page 1967 Dry ground pigment and ink on vellum, 18 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Portrait of Pat Hervey. London 1967 Gouache, pencil and charcoal pencil on cartridge paper laid down on 300 gsm Arches HP, 25 x 17.7 cm Collection of the Artist

Female Nude 1968 Oil on cardboard, 75.1 x 56.4 cm Gift of Ross Searle Collection of the City of Townsville Acc. 2020.0067.000

Seated Nude in Front of Mirror 1968 Charcoal and conte crayon on cartridge paper, 73.2 x 54.6 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Seated Figure Study with Cast 1967-1968 Charcoal on cartridge paper, 73.3 x 54.5 cm Collection of the Artist Middle Seated Figure Study in Line in Front of Mirror 1967-1968 Charcoal on cartridge paper, 73.3 x 54.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Life Drawing: Sarah Douglas 1974 Charcoal on cartridge paper 63.5 x 45.4 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Design Rough for Record Cover 1969 Collage, gouache, ink and found printed materials, stuck down on light card, 28 x 28 cm Collection of the Artist Right Double Page Spread Magazine Illustration for ‘Eating Out at Lyons’ 1969 Indian ink and gouache (airbrushed) over pencil on Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, dry-mounted onto Bristol board 31 x 46.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Left View of Artist’s house, Brighton, U.K. 1970-1971 Gouache and pencil on paper, 30.1 x 22.9 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Right Glenda seated, Brighton Pavillion 1971 Pencil, gouache and wash on tea – stained paper, laid down on cartridge paper 110 gsm, 11.1 x 11.1 cm Collection of the Artist

Layout Roughs for Penguin Modern Classics, The Girl with Hungry Eyes, 1969 – 1970 Collage, Pencil, gouache, watercolour, ink, felt-tip pen, 52 x 64 cm Collection of the Artist

Left ‘A Tale to Marvel At’, for ‘Valiant’ Comic 1970-71 Ink over pencil, on W & N cartridge C P 60 LBS, dry mounted onto Bristol board, 29.3 x 33.7 cm Collection of the Artist Right Finished Artwork for a Program Cover for ‘ The Pirates of Penzance’ 1972 Ink and Letraset on Bristol board, 26.7 x 22.7 cm Collection of the Artist

Poole Park at Dusk, Dorset 1971-2/1995 Pen and black ink, brown wash, touched with white and point of brush on paper, 8.1 x 8.3 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

A Place of Trees and Ancient Hills 1972-3 Pen and black ink, touched with white gouache and point of brush on paper laid on Lanaquarelle 21 x 16.7 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

Above Hidden from the Eyes of Men 1973 Pencil, pen and black ink, touched with white, on paper, laid on cardboard, 15.8 x 19.4 cm Private Collection of Neil and Bronia Renison Opposite page Encounter with a Restless Shore, Innisfail 1974 Pen and black ink, touched with white and point of brush, on paper laid on cardboard, 10.6 x 12.6 cm Purchased 1993 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1993.5

Ensnared Between the Tides 1974 Pen and black ink, grey and sepia wash, touched with white and point of brush, on paper, 11.5 x 13.2 cm Gift of the Artist 2008 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2008.28

Above Fruit of the Looking Glass Mangrove 1974 Ink and wash on sketchbook paper, 10.8 x 14.1 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Fruit of the Wrinkle-pod Mangrove (Cynometre Iripa) 1974 Pencil, ink and wash with gouache on Roon Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, pasted on Arches watercolour paper, 15.5 x 20.6 cm Collection of the Artist

Above The Secret Lives of Young Palms 1974 Pen and black ink, grey and brown wash, touched with white and point of brush, on paper, 19.8 x 25.7 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Opposite page After the Flood 1974 Black fine tip pen, black ink, brown wash and white gouache on paper, 14.5 x 14.1 cm Purchased 1993 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1993.4

Cox’s Landing 1974-5 Synthetic polymer and wax crayon on canvas, collage, crayon and pencil on pasted paper, 123 x 92 cm Private Collection of Jim and Pam Cox

Top Marmite 1976 – 2019 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas over gator board, 30.5 x 102 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Life Savers 1977 – 2020 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas over gator board, 30.5 x 102 cm Collection of the Artist

Top left Excerpt from ‘Temple Gardens’; Quintal Colour Chord 1977/89 Liquitex and synthetic polymer paint on primed beechwood panels 10 x 51 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom left A Palette for Piet: Primary Colour Chord 1976/89 Oil over liquitex and synthetic polymer paint on Beechwood Panels, 10 x 51 cm Collection of the Artist Top right A Block of Four Units for Papillon 1976 Pencil on graph paper and 3M photocopy paper, 22 x 25 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom right Modules for Unit Structures for Papillon 1976 Pencil photocopy of drawings on graph paper and 3M, 21 x 26 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Unit Structures Notebook 1975 – 77 Mixed media – gouache and pencil, pencil on paper, 21.5 x 16.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Sketchbook Page Including Original Design for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1976 Gouache and pencil and gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 25.5 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist Opposite page Study for Versa-Tile Pool 1 1976 Collage of gouache painted paper stuck down on card, 16 x 18.5 cm Gift of the Artist 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2001.1.1

Bolerol 1976 Collage of gouache painted paper stuck down on card , 11.5 x 18.4 cm Gift of the artist, 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.1.2

Bolero 1976 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 138 x 246 cm Gift of Graham Denovan 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.11

Top Allegro in Orange Major 1977 Synthetic polymer on canvas 42.5 x 52 x 12.5 cm Private Collection of Jim and Pam Cox Bottom Borderland Series 1977 Graphite, pencil and Chinese white on paper, 20.7 x 27 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Opposite page Chao Phya River 1977-8 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 122.9 x 152.2 cm Purchased, 1989. Funded from the Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1989.22

Top Unit Structures Notebook 1975 – 77 Mixed media – gouache, pencil on paper, 21.5 x 16.5 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Bookarts Project Book 1978 – 2005 Collage, graphite, gouache, gold leaf, ink, 30 x 42. cm Collection of the Artist Opposite page Morning Raga on Contemplating Pataya 1978 Gouache on Arches Dessin paper, 32.8 x 35.6 cm Purchased, 1994. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.26.1

The Terraces of Sirikit Before the Monsoon 2 1978 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 58 x 43 cm Collection of James Brown

The Terraces of Sirikit Before the Monsoon 1 1979 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 58 x 43 cm Collection of James Brown

Above Journeys into Silent Ponds 1979 Gouache on Arches Dessin paper, 36 x 56 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Opposite page Songman’s Glide 1980 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 34.3 x 39.4 cm Purchased 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.27

Above Study for the Voyage of a Singing Rock 1980 Top – gouache over pencil on tracing paper; Bottom – collage gouache over pencil on cartridge paper, Top – 5.2 x 24 cm; Bottom – 3.5 x 23.3 cm Collection of the Artist Opposite page Voyage of a Singing Rock 1981 Gouache, watercolour and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 32.5 x 26 cm Private Collection of Anneke Silver

Top Fragments of the Shaman’s Chant No. 2 1982 Pastel and charcoal on Arches Dessin paper, 11 x 77 cm Collection of James Brown Bottom Salagrama’s 1982 Pastel, conte and charcoal on Arches Dessin paper, 29 x 80 cm Collection of James Brown Opposite page Hummingbirds on Succulent Plants (triptych) 1982 Gouache on paper, 18 x 8 cm each panel Private Collection of Neil and Bronia Renison

Left Tulum Before Dawn 1982 Gouache, tempera and dry ground pigments on Arches Dessin paper, 35 x 41 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Right October Shedding 1982 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 33 x 12 cm Private Collection of Jane Hawkins

Top left Fragments of a ‘Eurasian Bowl’ 1984/2014 Gouache over pencil on detail paper on cartridge paper mounted on Mi- teintes, mounted on Arches Aquarelle (frottage), 8.4 x 11 cm Collection of the Artist Top right Two Miniatures Pore Voce 1982 Frottage, gouache over pencil on layout paper mounted on Mi-teintes paper 160 gsm, 8 x 4 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Bottom Lyric Ornament for a Pellucid Cup 1983 Frottage, gouache over pencil on detail paper mounted on Mi-teintes paper 160 gsm, 8.1 x 7.6 cm Collection of the Artist

Top left Bels’ Triangle – Face A 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12.5 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1982.18 Top right Bels’ Triangle – Face B 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1982.19 Bottom Bels’ Triangle – Face C and D 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12.5 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1982.20

Left Compositional Study for ‘Dance of the Tree Keepers’ 1982 Left – Pencil and crayon on tracing paper; Right – Pencil and gouache on Arches Dessin laid down on Bond, mounted on Canson illustration, Left – 15.4 x 7.2 cm, Right – 15.4 x 7.3 cm Collection of the Artist Right Sketchbook page, April 1982, Figure Studies and Pandanus 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown

Left Sketchbook page, June 1982, Studies from Mangrove Seeds 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Right Sketchbook page, August 1982, Spirit Paths, Aesetics in Their Cells 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 27.9 x 20.2 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

Left Sketchbook page, September 1982, Studies of Dancing Siva 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Right Sketchbook page, October 1982, Paperbarks and Shamanic Figures 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 27.9 x 20.7 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

Left Dusk Among the Pandanus at Kissing Point 1982-3 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigment on Arches Dessin paper, 24 x 19.9 cm 25.4 cm, Reassembled 5 pieces, 2015 Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Right Small Nilotic Peninsula, 1982 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper, 9.8 x 7.8 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

Top Sandbanks of a Creek Mouth, Magnetic Island 1983 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook cartridge 110 gsm, 13.5 x 17.3 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Ferry Path to Arcadia, Magnetic Island 1983 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook cartridge 110 gsm, 11.8 x 17.7 cm Collection of the Artist

Top left Studies for ‘Pelican’s Hear the Passing of the Dam Master’s Ark 1983 Gouache and pencil on various papers stuck down to a detached sketchbook page, mounted on 300 gsm, Lanaquarelle Satine, 27.3 x 20.7 cm Collection of the Artist Top right ‘Pelican’s Hear the Passing of the Dam Master Passing Arc’ 1983 Top – Pencil on tracing paper 60 gsm. Bottom – pencil and gouache on layout paper (two pieces joined) 45 gsm laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, Top – 6.5 x 27.2 cm; Bottom – 5.9 x 27.5cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Sketchbook page, 20 January 1983, Luxor, Egypt, Study of Desert Mosque and Goats 1983 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 28 x 20.5cm Collection of James Brown

IMAGE MISSING FROM FOLDER

Left Self Portrait Seated in Siddhasana 1979 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on Unicorn paper 110 gsm, laid down on Canson drawing 110 gsm, 13.2 x 12.3 cm Collection of the Artist Right Self Portrait Seated in a Red Shirt 1980 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on Unicorn paper 110 gsm, laid down on Canson drawing 110 gsm, 13 x 12.2 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Drawings From Rubbings No. 1 (Climbing Plant and Small Tree) 1984 Charcoal and white pastel on cartridge paper, 23.5 x 18.5 cm Collection of James Brown Right Drawings From Rubbings No. 2 1984 Charcoal and black chalk on cartridge paper, 4.5 x 18.5cm Collection of James Brown

Top Study for ‘Fragments of a Lost Place’ 1983 Sun-baked mud on board, 25.1 x 57.5 x 4 cm Purchased 1989. Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1989.23.2 Bottom Study for ‘Fragments of a Lost Place’ 1983 Sun-baked mud on board, 25.1 x 57.5 x 4 cm Purchased 1989. Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1989.23.3

Fragments of a Lost Place No 2 1982 Charcoal from site and black chalk on Arches paper, 75 x 108 cm Exhibited at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Survey Exhibition 1989. Donated by the Artist in 1992 for the James Cook University Collection

Top Fragments of a Lost Place, No. 1 1983 Black chalk and charcoal on Canson Dessin paper 160 gsm, 120 x 180 cm Purchased using the Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund 1989 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1989.23.1 Bottom Fragments of a Lost Place 1984 Black chalk and charcoal on Canson Dessin paper 160 gsm, 114.5 x 122.5 cm Collection of James Brown

Top Compositional Study 1985 Left – pencil and crayon on tracing paper; Right – gouache, ink and pencil on Bond paper mounted on Canson Drawing 110 gsm, laid down on Canson Illustration 250 gsm, Left 9.3 x 10 cm; Right – 9.3 x 10 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Sketchbook page, May 1985, Selection of Young Tea Trees, Brighton, UK 1985 Pencil on paper, 29.6 x 20.8 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

Naxos Mirror 1984 Casein Emulsion and dry ground pigment, charcoal, pastel, conte, crayon and chalk on canvas on board, 153.9 x 120.9 cm Purchased by James Cook University from the exhibition, DRAWINGS x 4 held at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in 1984 and travelled 1985. Exhibited in T150 exhibition at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts July/August 2016

Goulandris Mirror 1984 Casein Emulsion, dry ground pigment, pastel, charcoal, black chalk and conte’ crayon on canvas, charcoal, black chalk and tempera on canvas, 163 x 121 cm Purchased 1984 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1984.37

Left Sketchbook page, September 1985 1985 Gouache over pencil on paper 29.5 x 20.7 cm Collection of James Brown Right Compositional Studies for ‘Life on a Small Hill’ 1986 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook paper 110 gsm on Lanaquarelle Satine, 300 gsm, 29.5 x 20.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Sketchbook page, December 1986 1986 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 60 x 17.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Right Sketchbook page, November 1986, Cape York, Laura, Corypha Elata with Figures 1986 Gouache over pencil on paper, 29.6 x 20.8 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

Top Searching for Water in the Season of Ripening Passionfruit 1986 Gouache, dry ground pigments, tempera and shell gold on Fralkiners paper, 8.6 x 66.2 cm Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Arthur and Michelle Collins, 2010 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2009.78 Bottom Arrival of the Waterkeepers in the Season of Falling Rain 1986 Gouache, dry ground pigments, tempera on Fralkiners paper, 8.7 x 67.5 cm Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Arthur and Michelle Collins, 2010 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2009.79

Sketchbook page, August 1987, Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake 1987 Gouache over pencil on paper 29.6 x 20.9 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

Sketchbook page, June 1988 1988 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 26.5 x 18.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

Study for Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake No.1 1988 Watercolour and pencil on layout paper, 33.8 x 24 cm or 61.3 x 49 cm Gift of the Artist 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1994.28.1

Study for Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake No.1 1988 Tempera, gouache and dry-ground pigment on Arches Dessin paper on paper, 34.5 x 24 cm Purchased 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.28

Fields of That Which is Hidden 1989 Coloured wax on synthetic stone on cardboard mounted on plywood, 77.6 x 106.8 cm Purchased 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1990.39

Top Fields of That Which is Hidden 1989 Photocopy collage, 16.8 x 25 cm Gift of the artist 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1990.20 Bottom Study for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1989 Photocopy collage, 16.9 x 23.5 cm Gift of the artist 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1990.19

Four fold Sign of Yearly Renewal 1990 Polychrome wax pigment on synthetic stone on cardboard, 24 x 26 cm Collection of the Artist

Study for Womb-shaped Fertility Charm 1990 Pencil on paper, 7.5 x 8.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Left Study for an Amygdaloid Amulet No. 1 1990 Pencil on paper, 6.5 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Study for an Amygdaloid Amulet No. 2 1990 Pencil on paper, 6.5 x 9.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins

Left Amygdaloid Amulet, 1990 Dry ground pigment on tracing paper overlay on sun-dried clay with infilled designs clay with infilled designs, 6.5 x 10 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Right Two Amulets for the Year’s Journey 1990 Dry ground pigment and wax on tracing paper overlay on sun-dried clay with infilled designs 11 x 8.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins

100

Left Rhythmographic Plague for April 1990 Polychrome wax and pigments engraved on tracing paper overlay on clay, 12.5 x 10 cm Collection of the Artist Right Sketchbook page, October 1990 (Calendrical Plaques for April and May) 1990 Gouache over pencil with point of brush on layout paper mounted on sketchbook cartridge, 28 x 14.6 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

101

Left On a Small Dune by the Sea 1990 Charcoal and black chalk on Barcham Green paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm Collection of Marg and Stephen Naylor Right Sparsely Wooded Hillside 1990 Charcoal and black chalk on Barcham Green paper, 27.3 x 20.5 cm Collection of Marg and Stephen Naylor

102

Top The Lost Songs of Eden No. 1 – The Mezin Plaque 1990 Pigment and wax on carved ‘synthetic stone’ on board, 35 x 103 cm Donated by the Artist in 2016 for the James Cook University Art Collection

Bottom Working Drawing for the Lost Songs of Eden No. 1 – The Mezin Plaque 1990 Charcoal and chalk on tracing paper over ‘grass paper’, 38.5 x 100.5 cm Donated by the Artist in 2016 for the James Cook University Art Collection

103

Top The Lost Songs of Eden no. 2: The Myazian Plaque 1990 Pigments and wax on carved synthetic stone on canvas covered support, 64 x 130 cm Purchased 1991 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1991.2

Bottom Study for ‘The Lost Songs of Eden no 2: The Myazian plaque’ 1990 Chalk and charcoal on two sheets of tracing paper over grass paper, 71 x 128 cm Gift of the Artist 1991 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1991.2.1

104

Sketchbook page, April ‘91 1991 Watercolour and gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, laid on cartridge, 33.8 x 24.6 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

105

Left Studies for Figures and Small Palms 1992 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 28 x 21.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Study of Figures for ‘the Mixing of Memory with Desire’ 1992 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 29 x 19.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins

106

Top Transcendent Nocturnal Roost 1993 Left – pencil, red crayon and gouache on tracing paper; Right – pencil and gouache on layout paper 45 gsm, laid down on Reeves watercolour, Left – 13.9 x 8.1 cm; Right – 12 x 8.1 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Study for a Painting, Small Figures in a Batwing Coral Tree 1993 Left – pencil and red pencil on tracing paper; Right – gouache over pencil on layout paper, Left – 13.9 x 9 cm; Right – 13 x 9 cm Collection of the Artist

107

Left Chromatic study no. I 1994 Gouache and pencil on Ivorex board 250 gsm, laid down on 220 gsm Lana Dessin paper, 10 x 7.2cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Right Chromatic study no. II 1994 Collage, pencil and gouache on cartridge paper, laid down on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle paper, 9.1 x 8.4 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

108

Left Studies of Coral and Marine Life from Minoan Pottery and View of Island 1994 Pencil, gouache and pastel on sketchbook paper 110 gsm, 27.9 x 19.7 cm; Mount 63.5 x 48.4 cm Collection of the Artist Right Sketchbook Page: Studies of Moths From Imagination 1994 Gouache over pencil on paper, 21 x 14.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins

109

Top The Mixing of Memory with Desire: the Five Elements 1994 - 5 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigments with raised gilding and palladium leaf on 180 gsm Saunders-Waterford paper CP, 13.8 x 89.9 cm Purchased 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.9, 2001.10.a-e

Bottom The Mixing of Memory with Desire 1994-95 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigments with raised gilding and palladium leaf on gessoed wooden panel, 13.8 x 89.9 cm Purchased 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.9, 2001.10.a-e

110

Left Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International Airport I 1995 Pencil and gouache on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 cm Collection of the Artist Middle Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International Airport II 1995 Pencil and gouache on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International Airport III 1995 Gouache, coloured pencil and shell gold on paper, 13.2 x 13.2 cm Collection of the Artist

111

Left Studies from Indian Temple Sculpture (Female Supplicants, Yakshi and Waterbirds Among Lotuses) 1998 Watercolour and pencil on sketchbook paper, 29.5 x 19.7 cm Collection of Asoka Ranjanee Preston Right Studies from Indian Temple Sculpture (Figures and Asoka Tree) 1996 Watercolour and pencil on paper, 29.3 x 19.7 cm Collection of Asoka Ranjanee Preston

112

Top left Workshop Project Book for Tibetan Lettering 1998 Tibetan ink and gum Arabic, with reed pens, on Bhutanese Resho paper on Bhutanese Resho paper, 34 x 28 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Designs for the Cover of ‘Communion to the Trees’ 1998-2000 Gouache and gold leaf on old book covers, 48 x 55 cm Collection of the Artist

Top right Sketchbook III Work Relating to Communion Dedicated to the Trees 1994 Ink on paper 29 x 23 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

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Top Communion to the Trees Sketchbook, Volume I and II 1998 Collage, colour photocopies, 11 x 35 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Bottom Image Layout for ‘Communion to the Trees’ 2000 Collage, colour photocopies 23 x 56 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

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Page 118 – 125 Communion to the Trees (pages 1-8) 1998 – 2000 Gouache, watercolour, dry ground pigment and gold leaf, on 180 gsm Saunders-Waterford paper CP, 47.5 x 79.5 cm each Collection of the Artist

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116

117

118

119

120

121

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Top left Floor Design with Painting for Brisbane International Airport, Level Three, Outward Immigration, Mosaic Project, Mosaic Project 1994 Gouache and collage on paper, 32 x 71 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom left Brisbane International Airport, Mosaic section mounted on foam core, 7.8 x 9.8 cm Collection of the Artist

Top right Central Mosaic Panel for Level Three Outward Imagination – Brisbane International Airport 1995 Cibachrome print of mosaic fabricated by Art Busters, Brisbane, 70.4 x 60 cm Collection of the Artist. Photograph by Bruce Peebles.

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Top left Monochrome study for In the Lagoon of Mythic Origins 1999 Gouache over pencil on layout paper, 14 x 36.5 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom left Mosaic Sample Card from the Orsoni Glass Factory, Venice, Italy Glass Factory, Venice, Italy 1995 Glass mosaic tiles, vitreous, 21 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Top right Placement of Mosaic work for the 'Strand Redevelopment Project' Townsville 1999 1999 Pencil, white pencil and collage 29.5 x 24.5 cm; Matte 52 x 46 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left Study After a Votive Clay Figure, Isis in the Form if a Serpent Goddess 2001 Pencil and gouache, heightened in white, on 130 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, HP, 7.5 x 5.5 cm Collection of the Artist Right Study After a Votive Bronze Statuette of Isis and Serapis (Osiris) Entwined 2001 Pencil and gouache, heightened in white, on 130 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, HP, 6.2 x 7 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left Sketchbook for Works After Poussin, 2007 – 2010 Pencil, gouache, collage, watercolour, ink, 21 x 29.7cm Collection of the Artist Right Les Bergers D’Arcadie No. 1 (1628 – 9), After Poussin 2007 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Collection of the Artist

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Top Compositional Drawing for Bacchanal Before a Herm of Pan 1634, after Possuin Charcoal, pastel and conte crayon on 300 gsm University cartridge paper, 104.5 x 147 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Compositional Drawing for Bacchanal Before a Herm of Pan 1634, after Possuin 2013 – 2014 Pastel and conte crayon on 300 gsm University cartridge paper, 104.5 x 147 cm Collection of the Artist

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Bacchanal before a Herm of Pan, 1634, after Poussin Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 150 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

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Above Shepherds of Arcady (in Et Arcadia Ego) 1638-40, after Poussin 2008 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Collection of the Artist Opposite page The Triumph of Pan, 1685 – 6, after Poussin 2008 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

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Top left Dawn Landing, 1943 after Frank Hinder 2009 Charcoal and chalk on Canson Dessin paper, 37.5 x 40.5 cm Collection of the Artist Top right Sketchbook for ‘Reflections on a Dawn Landing’ 2008 – 2009 Collage, ink, graphite, watercolour, photocopy, tracing paper, ephemera, 29.8 x 49.5 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Bottom A ‘Dawn Landing in Townsville’, 1943; after Frank Hinder 2009 Pastel, charcoal on 110 gsm Mi-teintes paper 54.3 x 65.5 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left Studies of a Volute Shell 1993 Pencil and watercolour on Daler-Rowney 150 gsm cartridge paper, 12.7 x 14.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Middle Steorra LB39, Ross Dam, Townsville 2009 Gouache, pencil and watercolour on Daler-Rowney 150 gsm cartridge paper, 19 x 24.3 cm Collection of the Artist Right Damaged – Cymatium Caudatum 2005 Pencil and gouache on Daler-Rowney 150 gsm cartridge paper , 20 x 24.4 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left Study for one of The Three Graces, c 1516 after a Chalk Drawing by Raphael c 1516 2006 Charcoal and chalk on paper, 41 x 28 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Right Studies for the Heads of Venus and Chloris, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli 2009 Gouache on paper, 43.5 x 32.5 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left The Three Graces, Beauty, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli c 1477 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 8 x 8 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Middle The Three Graces, Chastity, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli c 1477 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 8 x 8 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Right The Three Graces, Pleasure, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli c 1477 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 9 x 9 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons

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Left Small Glass Jug 2006 Pencil on Sketchbook cartridge, 110 gsm, laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 20.5 x 14.2cm Collection of the Artist Right Chinese Guitar and ‘Kam-Tin’ Bowl 2010 Pencil heightened with white on Quill cartridge 110 gsm, 39.6 x 28.5 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left Succulent in a Tumbler 2010 Pencil heightened with white gouache on Quill 110 gsm cartridge paper, 39.5 x 28.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Right Tubular Vase with Lilies 2010 Pencil, touched with watercolour and heightened with white on Basildon Bond paper, 29 x 21 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

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Smoke Rising Behind Annandale: View from Sherriff Park across the Ross River 2010 Charcoal, black chalk and soft pastel on 160 gsm Mi-teintes paper , 55 x 75 cm Collection of the Artist

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Top Odysseus Immured in the Garden of the Divine Calypso 2012 Graphite on vellum tracing paper, laid down on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm HP, 28 x 56 cm Collection of the Artist

Bottom Composition Study Based on ‘Primitive City’ by Edward Calvert, 1822 2014-16 Pencil with gouache duochrome washes touched with white on 130 gsm Strathmore paper, laid down on 300 gsm Arches Aquarelle, 19 x 40 cm Collection of the Artist

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Top Chromatic study: Piper’s Lookout, Winter 2015 Collage, gouache and tempera with pencil overlaid with coloured pencil, varnished with Damar, on Arches Aquarelle, 300 gsm, mounted on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm paper 8.3 x 11.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Bottom Chromatic study no. I for the painting ‘Odysseus immured in the Garden of the Divine Calypso’ 2012 Watercolour and gouache on Saunders watercolour paper, varnished and stuck down to watercolour paper, 9.3 x 14 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

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Rain Trees: Fadden Park 2011 Gouache touched with pastel on 180 gsm Saunders watercolour paper, 18.5 x 25.5 cm Private Collection of Dr Chris Mann

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View Through the Studio Window 2009 Pencil on Spirax cartridge 110 gsm, laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 12.6 x 21 cm Collection of the Artist

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Top View Across Wonga Court to Stuart Range 2016 Pencil on Lana sketchbook paper on Arches Aquarella HP 300 gsm, 14 x 18.1 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom Kelso – A Corner of the Artist’s Front Garden; Framara Drive 2013 Pencil on Lana paper, 14 x 18.3 cm Collection of the Artist

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View Across the Ross Toward the Good Shepard 2015 Gouache touched with pastel on 300 gsm Lanaquarelle HP, 12 x 30 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie

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Top Smoke Rising Behind Annandale 2009 Gouache on Fabriano Rustica 185 gsm, 17.5 x 24.5 cm Collection of the Artist Bottom View across the Ross River looking toward Harvey Range from Sherriff Park 2013-14 Gouache and pastel on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 17.5 x 31.5 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2019.0021.000 (2019.021)

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Top Annandale: View From Across the Ross River from the Ross River Parkway 2009-10 Gouache on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 20 x 30 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2019.0019.000 (2019.019) Bottom View of Ross River from Sherriff Park 2014 Gouache and pastel on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm, 14.2 x 23.4 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2019.0020.000 (2019.020)

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Left Colour Study Note Book Preston Vol.1 1980 – 2008 Gouache on paper, 28.5 x 22 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Right Sheet of studies for Female Figure from ‘Tree-tappers Listen for the Call of Returning Moths’ 2014 Pencil, gouache and collage on Daler-Rowney cartridge 150 gsm, 29.5 x 20.8 cm; 63.5 x 48.4cm Collection of the Artist

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A Primitive City: Ancient Rite Beneath a Waxing Moon 2015-16 Pencil on Officeworks sketchbook paper, 110 gsm HP, 32.5 x 71 cm Collection of the Artist

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A Primitive City: Ancient Rite Beneath a Waxing Moon 2014-2016 Tempera, gouache, dry ground pigment and gold leaf on Arches Aquarelle 250 gsm, HP, 19 x 41.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

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Palms and Pink Cloud 1975/2020 Collage of papers painted with gouache and ink, stuck down to Saunders Waterford Aquarelle HP 300 gsm, mounted on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm, 20.3 x 29.3 cm Collection of the Artist

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A Winter Garden in the Dry Tropics 2020 Collage of papers, painted with gouache and brushed pastel, stuck down to Daler-Rowney Aquafine 250 gsm paper mounted on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm ,15.1 x 21 cm Collection of the Artist

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“...Ironically it was I who got the first surprise” 1970-71/2020 Windsor & Newton Indian ink and wash with bleed proof white applied with brush and pen, on Lana Dessin 220 gsm, laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 29.4 x 24.2 cm Collection of the Artist

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Left “...In the moon light on the other side of the curtain...” 1970-71/2020 Speedball Indian ink and wash with bleed proof white applied with brush and pen, on Lana Dessin 220 gsm, mounted on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 31.1 x 29.4 cm Collection of the Artist Right “...The Dutch lawyer was something of a mystery!...” 1970-71/2020 Windsor & Newton Indian ink and wash with bleed proof white applied with brush and pen on Lana Dessin 220 gsm laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 30.2 x 28.7 cm Collection of the Artist

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Voices From a Distant Shore 2019 Graphite and red pencil on Canson detail paper 55 gsm, laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 38.8 x 59.3 cm Collection of the Artist

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Voices From a Distant Shore 2020 – 21 Tempera gouache, dry-ground pigment, and gold leaf on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board. 34 x 56.5 cm Collection of the Artist

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Chronology by Robert Preston

1942

1st January, I was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, to Kathleen Mary Preston (Nee Butler) of Blackheath, London and John Preston’s son of Maria Preston (Nee Butler) of Blackheath, London & John Preston son of Maria Preston (nee Marjuka Dans) of Galicia, Spain and Forrest Preston of Inverness, Scotland. Mother was evacuated from London during the ‘Blitz’ with her sister. 1944

Again, evacuated from London due to illness and shock following a ‘V2’ rocket attack and resulting damage to the family home: this time to Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire with my mother, aunt and cousin Ann.

1949

First visits to galleries and museums with my mother during summer holidays. First family holiday at Birchington-on-Sea, Kent. 1953-54

Secondary school, first at Forest Hill Central; introduced to formal studies in art and music. Given a box of watercolours and began painting at home. A wonderful school to which I was well suited. Met Francesca Longchamps at Birchington-on-Sea. 1955

Return of my father from the Royal Navy.

Won a scholarship to Haberdashers’ Aske’s, Hatcham London. A dry, boring institution, where the masters floated around in their academic robes like flocks of crows. Began learning to play the guitar.

1947

1958-59

1946

Attended Kelvin Grove primary school, South East London.

First visit to France, with Francesca Longchamps. Left school, drifting from job to job; from office work to labouring before enlisting in the ‘Royal Army Ordnance Corps.’

1960

Began military service in January. Began training in the freezing winter of 59-60 at Blackdown, Surrey. Sent to Cambridge hospital, Aldershot as the result of an influenza epidemic which swept through the entire camp. Sent to Bramley to train as an ammunition examiner/store man. 1961-64

Served in various munitions depots at home and overseas during without time I learnt the value of developing a good visual memory. 1964

Francesca Longchamps passed away. Set about raising the level of my general education and building a portfolio of work as a prelude to applying for a place at college of art. My brother Ilric was already enrolled at Goldsmiths Collage of Art where he had met and later introduced me to artists John Mansbridge, Betty Swanwick and the botanical illustrator John Norris-Wood whose studios we visited and whose influence was of great and enduring import. He and I also studied drawing part-time with

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Gerry Hunt at the South London Institute. It was partly due to Hunt’s encouragement and recommendation together with that of Betty Swanwick that I gained entrance to the Camberwell School of Arts and Craft. 1965

Accepted onto the ‘foundation course’ where, among other tutors I was taught by Geoffrey Baker, Donald Jackson (calligrapher to the Queen) and the painter Euan Uglow – both of whom had an enduring influence on the direction and method of my work. Plein air classes with Chris Chamberlain were also under taken. 1966

Accepted onto the Diploma of Art and Design (Dip. A.D. Hons) at Camberwell. Among others I was taught by Euan Uglow, Mario Dubsky, Anthony Eyton and Tom Espley. Met and was tutored by Sargy Mann. 1967

Travelled to France and made my first trip to Spain with Patricia Hervey. Impressed by the magical architecture of Antoni Gaudi – the Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, etc.

A rare and enlightening visit to Frank Auerbach’s studio in Camberwell. 1968

A second (painting) trip to Spain via France. Of note were visits to Figueres and Port Lligat. Home of Salvador Dali, Karl Faust Botanical Gardens, Blanes and Guell Park and Gaudi museum, Barcelona. 1970

Completed the Dip. A.D. Hons. Married Patricia Hervey, at Brighton Sussex. A protracted sojourn in Germany and a visit to Austria. 1971

Undertook a diploma in art teaching (ATD) at Brighton Polytechnic/Sussex university. Worked as a part-time freelance illustrator and designer with my brother and Patrica Hervey.

1972

First full time teaching post at Seldown Secondary Boys School, Poole, Dorset as Assistant Art Master. Part-time post graduate studies (not completed) at Bournemouth College of Art. 1973

Included in Artists of the South West, Poole Museum, Dorset, UK and the South London Gallery, London Migrated to Australia with Pat. First appointment, Innisfail state high school as Assistant to the Art Subject Master. Tremendous shock both environmentally and culturally. 1974

Invited to teach for the Department of Technical and Further Education. Moved to Townsville to assist Jim Cox (from Queensland College of Art, Seven Hills) in setting up a new art and design course at the Townsville college of TAFE. 1974-75

Included in New Works, curated by Ralph Martin, the Martin Gallery, Townsville.

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1975

Anneke Silver joined the staff part-time, and David Blackman arrived later that year from the College of Art, Seven Hills, to teach full time. As a result, the course was expanded and enduring friendships were formed with both artists. 1975-76

Study trips to Hong Kong the new territories and Thailand. The later left a deep impression as did the Han Tombs in Li Cheung. First meetings with John Coburn and Michael Johnson, with whom I worked (with others) on a large mural work for James Cook University student union refectory. At that time Michael was the artist in residence at the university. 1976

Included in Exhibition Highlights, curated by Norman Wilson, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. 1976-77

Visits to Bali and Java with Pat. Both were influential and of great visual and cultural interest.

1977

Solo exhibition, Untitled, at the Martin Gallery, Townsville. 1978-79

James Brown joined the full-time staff in September. Study leave in the UK and first visit to Greece with Pat. Meetings with Ian Smith, David Paulson, Gordon Shepherdson and Ray Hughes. 1979

Included in New Abstraction, curated by Anna Bock, Civic Theatre Gallery, Townsville, the Martin Gallery, Townsville and Tonnoirs Fine Art Gallery, Townsville. 1980-81

Ron McBurnie and Jane Hawkins joined the fulltime staff. Study leave in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize with colleagues James Brown, Ron McBurnie, Jane Hawkins and wife Pat, our only Spanish speaker. Ron and I collaborated on a number of occasions eventually becoming close friends. Began classical guitar studies with Peter Symes.

1981

Included in Recent Work, curated by Ralph Martin, the Martin Gallery, Townsville. Included in Recent Work, curated by Paul Tonnoir, Tonnoirs Fine Art Gallery, Townsville. 1982

Included in Tie Exhibition, curated by Norman Wilson, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. 1982-83

Study leave in Greece, Crete and Egypt with Pat, James Brown and Anneke Silver. 1983

Solo exhibition, Painted Myths, curated by Ralph Martin with Anna Bock, the Martin Gallery, Townsville. 1984-85

Included in Drawings x 4, travelling exhibition with Anneke Silver, Ron McBurnie and James Brown, curated by Norman Wilson; Perc Tucker Regional Gallery,

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Townsville; Raintrees Gallery, Cairns; Noosa Shire Gallery, Tewantin; College of Art Gallery, Brisbane; Ipswich Regional Gallery, Gladstone Regional Gallery. 1985

Study leave to the UK, via Manama, Bahrain. Later in the year visited rock art sites in the vicinity of Jowalbinna and the Laura River in cape York with guide Stephan Tresize and colleague Anneke Silver. 1986

Ross Searle was appointed as the new director of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. We developed a close working relationship and longstanding friendship. His encouragement and promotion of my work formed an influential component in my professional development. Began classical guitar studies with Dave Roberts. 1987

Included in Tropical Visions, curated by John Millington, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery,

Townsville; the Centre Gallery, Gold Coast. Complemented with a significant publication. 1989

First survey exhibition, Robert Preston Survey, curated by Ross Searle then director Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. Complemented with Significant publication. First meeting with the abstract painter Robert Hunter. 1990

Included in Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. Included in Works on Paper: Eight Queensland Artists, Grahame Gallery, Brisbane. Included in Post Euston Road: A Review of Contemporary Trends, Austin and Desmond Galleries, Gallery II, London. Solo exhibition, Lost Songs of Eden, Tonnoirs Fine Art, Townsville. Included in Dictionary of Australian Artists and Galleries by Max Germaine.

1990-91

Met English contemporary composer and polymath Dr. Edward Cowie. Completed a Master of Creative Arts degree with him at JCU. Second meeting with John Coburn who was one of my examiners for ‘The Lost Songs of Eden’ exhibition - the practice component for the MCA, the practice component of the MCA. Seconded to the newly formed Australian Arts Fusion Centre (James Cook University) under the directorship of Prof. Edward Cowie in which time we became firm friends. He was also instrumental in furthering my creative development. 1992

Returned to my original position with (the TAFE) School of Arts and Design which had by that time moved over to James Cook University. Engagement to Asoka Nakandala in Manama, Battlerain. Trip to the UK. First showing of works in London, by Austin and Desmond and in Japan, in Iwaki and Tokuyama.

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Solo Exhibition, Between the Tides: An Exhibition of Works on Paper 1971-75, curated by Ross Searle, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. Complemented with significant publication. 1992-93

Worked on a commission for the concourse on level 3, Outward Immigration of the then new Brisbane International Airport. The commission was to be realised in mosaic and was overseen by Battersby and Associates, by and associated of Sydney and Bligh Voller Architects, architect of Brisbane. Took classical and jazz studies jazz guitar studies with Dave Roberts for a second time. 1993

Robert and Asoka’s son Adrian is born. 1994

Included in Collecting in the Tropics, curated by Ross Searle, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville.

Included in Lyre Bird Press, curated by Tate Adams and Ron McBurnie, Lyre Bird Press, James Cook University, Townsville.

1999

1995

2000-01

Included in Muse, curated by Chris Downie, Umbrella Studio, Townsville. Included in New Brisbane International: Federal Airports Corporation (selected group exhibition), curated by Dr Jean Battersby, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. 1997

Recommended to undertake PhD studies with Proof. Diana Davis. Study leave Tokyo (The Japan Australia Foundation) and the UK with wife Asoka and son Adrian. Offered a post at Darlington College, UK. 1998-99

The Strand Redevelopment Project: a pavement mosaic installation opposite the entrance to Gregory Street, commissioned by Townsville City Council. To assist in amenatization of the Strand.

Included in The Permanent Collection Reviewed, curated by Robyn Walton, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. Two solo exhibitions; the Mixing of Memory with Desire as practical components towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (James Cook University). First at the Customs House UQ, Brisbane, curated by Ross Searle and hen by Francis Thomson at the Perc Tucker Regional Galley. 2003

Study trip to the UK with wife Asoka and son Adrian. Publication of ‘Communion to the Trees’ by Palgreave Macmillon Art Publishing, Melbourne, an initiative put forward by Francis Thomson and realised but Proof. Jenny Zimmer. 2004

Took early retirement from James Cook University due to ill health.

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2005-06

Awarded a PhD in creative arts. First showing of work at the Gimberland gallery, Nashville. Managed the restoration and reinstallation of 16 pieces of sculptures as a part of the newly restored interior of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Townsville. Acquired my first decent guitar a Jose Ortega a venetian cutaway. 2009

Included in Now and then – 150 years of art making in north Queensland, curated by Ross Searle. Works commissioned by Searle for the exhibition references pieces by wellknown Australian artists who had worked here (in the north) in the past. The war time watercolours of aircraft by Frank Hinder were my selected reference images. With Ron McBurnie’s encouragement I took up plein air painting again – something I had not undertaken in a very long time. In the years that followed we painted at a

number of locations in Townsville, many of which included views of and across the Ross River. Not only Not only did I derive a great deal of pleasure from our excursions, conversations, critiques and the often amusing encounters with the passers-by but it also got me out of the studio.

2018

2016

Included in Utopia Tropicae: Spirit of the North (group exhibition), curated by Jonathan McBurnie and Lucy Belle Tesoriero, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. Complemented with a significant publication.

Included in Images of an Era: The Martin Gallery, curated by Dr Anneke silver and Eric Nash, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. Complemented with a significant publication. Included in Celebrating Townsville: the City’s Visual History Drawn from the James Cook University Art Collection, curated by Ross Searle, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville. Complemented with a significant publication. 2017

Discussions commenced with Dr Jonathan McBurnie, then Director or Umbrella Studio, for plans of a major retrospective.

Included in Commentary: Hand-Printed Posters from North Queensland Artists, curated by Sheree Kinlyside, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville. 2019

2020

Included in 50 Treasures: Celebrating 50 years of James Cook University, curated by Bronwyn McBurnie, drawing from works in the JCU Eddie ‘Koiki’ Mabo libraries Special Collection. Complemented with significant publication.

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List of works The Book of Jonah and the Book of Micah 1955 Poster paint, gouache 10 x 7 cm Collection of the Artist

Museum Study 1967 Dry ground pigment and ink on vellum, 18 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist

The Book of Genesis Chaps 1 – 16 1953 Poster paint on paper, 6.8 x 5.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Portrait of Pat Hervey. London 1967 Gouache, pencil and charcoal pencil on cartridge paper laid down on 300 gsm Arches HP, 25 x 17.7 cm Collection of the Artist

Portrait Sketch of a French Girl; Francesca 1964 Pencil, heightened with white gouache, 15 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist Roof Gardens, Blanca – Spain 1965 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 30.6 x 16.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Lettering and Calligraphy Exercises 1965 – 1966 Pencil on paper, 29 x 46 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Figure Drawing from a Cast 1966 Pencil on paper, 35.5 x 24 cm Collection of the Artist Bentwood (Ilric’s Chair-Bedroom at No. 13) 1966 Pencil on paper, 10.6 x 9.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Breakfast Table (Ilric and My Cups) at No. 13, London 1966 Pencil on paper, 5.4 x 11.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Chairs and Table Study – Breakfast Table at No. 13 – London 1966 Pencil on paper, 9.5 x 8.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Interior with Chair 1966 Synthetic polymer, gouache, oil on sugar paper, 29.8 x 22.2 cm Private Collection of Anneke Silver Masque of the Red Death 1966 Coloured inks, shell gold, 29 cm x 22.5 cm Collection of the Artist Still Life with Cups – Breakfast Table at No. 13 – London 1966 Pencil on paper, 4.2 x 6.7 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Early Sketchbook 1966 – 1967 Gold leaf, ink, watercolour, 29 x 46 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Gunhill – Overy Staithe, Norfolk 1967 Pencil and watercolour on sketchbook paper stuck down to Arches Aquarelle, HP, 300 gsm, 22.3 x 17.2 cm Collection of the Artist

The Tarn – Eltham Common 1967 Pencil and watercolour on sketchbook paper, mounted on Lanaquarelle, HP, 300 gsm, 22.3 x 17.2 cm Collection of the Artist Seated Figure Study with Cast 1967-1968 Charcoal on cartridge paper, 73.3 x 54.5 cm Collection of the Artist Seated Figure Study in Line in Front of Mirror 1967-1968 Charcoal on cartridge paper, 73.3 x 54.5 cm Collection of the Artist Female Nude 1968 Oil on cardboard, 75.1 x 56.4 cm Gift of Ross Searle Collection of the City of Townsville Acc. 2020.0067.000 Seated Nude in Front of Mirror 1968 Charcoal and conte crayon on cartridge paper, 73.2 x 54.6 cm Collection of the Artist Design Rough for Record Cover 1969 Collage, gouache, ink and found printed materials, stuck down on light card, 28 x 28 cm Collection of the Artist Double Page Spread Magazine Illustration for ‘Eating Out at Lyons’ 1969 Indian ink and gouache (airbrushed) over pencil on Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, dry mounted onto Bristol board, 31 x 46.5 cm Collection of the Artist View of Artist’s house, Brighton, U.K. 1970-1971 Gouache and pencil on paper, 30.1 x 22.9 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Glenda seated, Brighton Pavillion 1971 Pencil, gouache and wash on tea – stained paper, laid down on cartridge paper 110 gsm, 11.1 x 11.1 cm Collection of the Artist

Layout Roughs for Penguin Modern Classics 1969 – 1970 Collage, Pencil, gouache, watercolour, ink, felt-tip pen, 52 x 64 cm Collection of the Artist ‘A Tale to Marvel At’, for ‘Valiant’ Comic 1970-71 Ink over pencil, on W & N cartridge C P 60 LBS, dry mounted onto Bristol board, 29.3 x 33.7 cm Collection of the Artist “…The Dutch lawyer was something of a mystery!…” 1970-1971/20 Windsor and Newton Indian ink and tinted bleed proof white applied with brush and pen on Lana Dessin 220 gsm laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 30.2 x 28.7 cm Collection of the Artist “…In the moon light on the other side of the curtain…” 1970-1971/2020 Speedball Indian ink and wash with bleed proof white applied with brush and pen, on Lana Dessin 220 gsm, mounted on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 31.1 x 29.4 cm Collection of the Artist “…Ironically it was I who got the first surprise” 1970-1971/2020 Windsor and Newton Indian ink and wash with bleed proof white applied with brush and pen on Lana Dessin 220 gsm, laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 29.4 x 24.2 cm Collection of the Artist Finished Artwork for a Program Cover for ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ 1972 Ink and Letraset on Bristol board, 26.7 x 22.7 cm Collection of the Artist Poole Park at Dusk, Dorset 1971-1972/1995 Pen and black ink, brown wash, touched with white and point on paper, 8.1 x 8.3 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock A Place of Trees and Ancient Hills 1972-1973 Pen and black ink, touched with white gouache and point of brush on paper laid on Lanaquarelle 21 x 16.7 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie The Blossoming of Primeval Plants 1973 Pen and black ink, sepia and grey wash, 17.8 x 21.3 cm Collection of the Artist Hidden from the Eyes of Men 1973 Pencil, pen and black ink, touched with white, on paper, laid on cardboard, 15.8 x 19.4 cm Private Collection of Neil and Bronia Renison

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After the Flood 1974 Black fine tip pen, black ink, brown wash and white gouache on paper, 14.5 x 14.1 cm Purchased 1993 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1993.4 Encounter with a Restless Shore, Innisfail 1974 Pen and black ink, touched with white and point of brush, on paper laid on cardboard, 10.6 x 12.6 cm Purchased 1993 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1993.5 Ensnared Between the Tides 1974 Pen and black ink, grey and sepia wash, touched with white and point of brush, on paper, 11.5 x 13.2 cm Gift of the Artist 2008 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2008.28 Fruit of the Looking Glass Mangrove 1974 Ink and wash on sketchbook paper, 10.8 x 14.1 cm Collection of the Artist Fruit of the Wrinkle-pod Mangrove (Cynometre Iripa) 1974 Pencil, ink and wash with gouache on Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, pasted on Arches watercolour paper, 15.5 x 20.6 cm Collection of the Artist Life Drawing: Sarah Douglas 1974 Charcoal on cartridge paper 63.5 x 45.4 cm Collection of the Artist The Secret Lives of Young Palms 1974 Pen and black ink, grey and brown wash, touched with white and point of brush, on paper, 19.8 x 25.7 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Cox’s Landing 1974-5 Synthetic polymer and wax crayon on canvas, collage, crayon and pencil on pasted paper, 123 x 92 cm Private Collection of Jim and Pam Cox Unit Structures Notebook 1975-1977 Mixed media – gouache and pencil on paper, 21.5 x 16.5 cm Collection of the Artist Palms and Pink Cloud 1975/2020 Collage of papers painted with gouache and ink, stuck down to Saunders Waterford Aquarelle HP 300 gsm, mounted on Lana Aquarelle, 300 gsm, 20.3 x 29.3 cm Collection of the Artist

Marmite 1976 – 2019 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas over gator board, 30.5 x 102 cm Collection of the Artist Bolero 1976 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 138 x 246 cm Gift of Graham Denovan 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.11 A Series of Block of Studies for Papillon Units 1976 Pencil photocopy of drawings on graph paper and 3M, 21 x 26 cm Collection of the Artist Borderland 1976 Gouache collage on pasted paper, 77 x 102 cm Collection of Shannon Chadwick A Block of Four Units for Papillon 1976 Pencil on graph and 3M photocopy paper, 22 x 25 cm Collection of the Artist Series of Modules for Unit Structures for Papillion 1976 Pencil on graph and 3M photocopy paper, 21 x 65 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook Page Including Original Design for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1976 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 25.5 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook Page Including Original Design for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1976 Chinese white and ink over pencil on paper, 19 x 25.2 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook Page Including Original Design for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1976 Gouache and pencil and gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 25.5 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist Study for a Chevron Painting 1976 Pencil on Sketchbook paper, 25.2 x 19 cm Collection of the Artist Study for Versa-Tile Pool 1 1976 Collage of gouache painted paper stuck down on card, 16 x 18.5 cm Gift of the Artist 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2001.1.1

Bolero 1976 Gouache on card collage, 11.5 x 18.4 cm Gift of the artist, 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.1.2 Versa-tile pool, no. 1 1976 Synthetic polymer tempera and vinyl on canvas, 155 x 183.5 cm Acquired 1976. Winner of the Townsville Pacific Festival, John Raggatt Acquisitive Award. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1976.15 Life Savers 1977/2020 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas over gator board, 30.5 x 102 cm Collection of the Artist A Palette for Piet: Primary Colour Chord 1976/1989 Oil over liquitex and synthetic polymer paint on Beechwood Panels, 10 x 51 cm Collection of the Artist Excerpt from ‘Temple Gardens’; Quintal Colour Chord 1977/1989 Liquitex and synthetic polymer paint on primed beechwood panels 10 x 51 cm Collection of the Artist Borderland Series 1977 Graphite, pencil and Chinese white on paper, 20.7 x 27 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Allegro in Orange Major 1977 Synthetic polymer on canvas 42.5 x 52 x 12.5 cm Private Collection of Jim and Pam Cox Chao Phya River 1977-1978 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 122.9 x 152.2 cm Purchased, 1989. Funded from the Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1989.22 Assembled from an Old […] 1978-2005 Mixed media – gouache, pencil on paper G25, 42.5 x 30.5 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Bookarts Project Book 1978-2005 Collage, graphite, gouache, gold leaf, ink, 30 x 42 cm Collection of the Artist Morning Raga on Contemplating Pataya 1978 Gouache on Arches Dessin paper, 32.8 x 35.6 cm Purchased, 1994. City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.26.1

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The Terraces of Sirikit Before the Monsoon 2 1978 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 58 x 43 cm Collection of James Brown Journeys into Silent Ponds 1979 Gouache on Arches Dessin paper, 36 x 56 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Self Portrait Seated in Siddhasana 1979 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on Unicorn paper 110 gsm, laid down on Canson drawing 110 gsm, 13.2 x 12.3 cm Collection of the Artist The Terraces of Sirikit Before the Monsoon 1 1979 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 58 x 43 cm Collection of James Brown Self Portrait Seated in a Red Shirt 1980 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on Unicorn paper 110 gsm, laid down on Canson drawing 110 gsm, 13 x 12.2 cm Collection of the Artist Songman’s Glide 1980 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 34.3 x 39.4 cm Purchased 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.27 Study for the Voyage of a Singing Rock 1980 Top – gouache over pencil on tracing paper; Bottom – collage gouache over pencil on cartridge paper, Top – 5.2 x 24 cm; Bottom – 3.5 x 23.3 cm Collection of the Artist Colour Study Note Book Preston Vol.1 1980 – 2008 Gouache on paper, 28.5 x 22 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Sketchbook page, July 1981, Shamanic Figures 1981 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Voyage of a Singing Rock 1981 Gouache, watercolour and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 32.5 x 26 cm Private Collection of Anneke Silver Bels’ Triangle – Face A 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12.5 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1982.18 Bels’ Triangle – Face B 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1982.19

Bels’ Triangle – Face C and D 1982 Charcoal pencil and gouache on layout paper on card, 10 x 12.5 cm Purchased 1982 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1982.20 Compositional Study for ‘Dance of the Tree Keepers’ 1982 Left – Pencil and crayon on tracing paper; Right – Pencil and gouache on Arches Dessin laid down on Bond, mounted on Canson illustration, Left – 15.4 x 7.2 cm, Right – 15.4 x 7.3 cm Collection of the Artist Fragments of a Lost Place No 2 1982 Charcoal from site and black chalk on Arches paper, 75 x 108 cm Exhibited at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Survey Exhibition 1989. Donated by the Artist in 1992 for the James Cook University Collection Hummingbirds on Succulent Plants (triptych) 1982 Gouache on paper, 18 x 8 cm each panel Private Collection of Neil and Bronia Renison October Shedding 1982 Gouache and tempera on Arches Dessin paper, 33 x 12 cm Private Collection of Jane Hawkins Salagrama’s 1982 Pastel, conte and charcoal on Arches Dessin paper, 29 x 80 cm Collection of James Brown Sketchbook page, April 1982, Figure Studies and Pandanus 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Sketchbook page, August 1982, Spirit Paths, Aesetics in Their Cells 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 27.9 x 20.2 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Sketchbook page, June 1982, Studies from Mangrove Seeds 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Sketchbook page, October 1982, Paperbarks and Shamanic Figures 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 27.9 x 20.7 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Sketchbook page, September 1982, Studies of Dancing Siva 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Sketchbook page, 27 December 1982, Studies of Boatmen and Falouka’s, Luxor Egypt 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper 28 x 20.5 cm Collection of James Brown Small Nilotic Peninsula, 1982 1982 Gouache over pencil on paper, 9.8 x 7.8 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

Fragments of the Shaman’s Chant No. 2 1982 Pastel and charcoal on Arches Dessin paper, 11 x 77 cm Collection of James Brown Tulum Before Dawn 1982 Gouache, tempera and dry ground pigments on Arches Dessin paper, 35 x 41 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Two Miniatures Pore voce 1982 Frottage, gouache over pencil on layout paper mounted on Mi-tientes paper 160 gsm, both panels 8 x 4 cm; 8 x 4 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Dusk Among the Pandanus at Kissing Point 1982-1983 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigment on Arches Dessin paper, 24 x 19.9 cm 25.4 cm, Reassembled 5 pieces, 2015 Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock A Measured Self Portrait 1983 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on unicorn 110 gsm, laid down on Canson WC paper, 185 gsm, CP, 15 x 12.1 cm Collection of the Artist Compositional Studies for ‘Pelicans Hear The Passing of the Damn Masters Passing Arc’ 1983 Top – Pencil on tracing paper 60 gsm. Bottom – pencil and gouache on layout paper (two pieces joined) 45 gsm laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, Top – 6.5 x 27.2 cm; Bottom – 5.9 x 27.5cm Collection of the Artist Ferry Path to Arcadia, Magnetic Island 1983 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook cartridge 110 gsm, 11.8 x 17.7 cm Collection of the Artist Fragments of a Lost Place, No. 1 1983 Black chalk and charcoal on Canson Dessin 160 gsm paper, 120 x 180 cm Purchased using the Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund 1989 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1989.23.1 Lyric Ornament for a Pellucid Cup 1983 Frottage, gouache over pencil on detail paper mounted on Mi-teintes paper 160 gsm, 8.1 x 7.6 cm Collection of the Artist Sandbanks of a Creek Mouth, Magnetic Island 1983 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook cartridge 110 gsm, 13.5 x 17.3 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook page, 20 January 1983, Luxor, Egypt, Study of Desert Mosque and Goats 1983 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 28 x 20.5cm Collection of James Brown

Studies for ‘Pelican’s Hear the Passing of the Dam Master’s Ark 1983 Gouache and pencil on various papers stuck down to a detached sketchbook page, mounted on 300 gsm, Lanaquarelle Satine,27.3 x 20.7 cm Collection of the Artist Study for ‘Fragments of a Lost Place’ 1983 Sun-baked mud on board, 25.1 x 57.5 x 4 cm Purchased 1989. Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1989.23.2 Study for ‘Fragments of a Lost Place’ 1983 Sun-baked mud on board, 25.1 x 57.5 x 4 cm Purchased 1989. Perc Tucker Memorial Collection Appeal Fund City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1989.23.3 Fragments of a ‘Eurasian Bowl’ 1984/2014 Frottage, gouache over pencil on detail paper, mounted on Mi-tientes paper 160 gsm, 8.4 x 11 cm Collection of the Artist Drawings From Rubbings No. 1 (Climbing Plant and Small Tree) 1984 Charcoal and white pastel on cartridge paper, 23.5 x 18.5 cm Collection of James Brown Drawings From Rubbings No. 2 1984 Charcoal and black chalk on cartridge paper, 4.5 x 18.5cm Collection of James Brown Fragments of a Lost Place 1984 Black chalk and charcoal on Canson Dessin paper 160 gsm paper, 114.5 x 122.5 cm Collection of James Brown Goulandris Mirror 1984 Casein Emulsion and dry ground pigment, charcoal, black chalk and conte’ crayon on canvas, 163 x 121 cm Purchased 1984 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1984.37 Naxos Mirror 1984 Casein Emulsion and dry ground pigment, charcoal, pastel, conte, crayon and chalk on canvas on board, 153.9 x 120.9 cm Purchased by James Cook University from the exhibition, DRAWINGS x 4 held at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in 1984 and travelled 1985. Exhibited in T150 exhibition at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts July/August 2016 Compositional Study 1985 Left – pencil and crayon on tracing paper; Right – gouache, ink and pencil on Bond mounted on Canson Drawing 110 gsm, laid down on Canson Illustration 250 gsm, Left 9.3 x 10 cm; Right – 9.3 x 10 cm Collection of the Artist

Sketchbook page, May 1985, Selection of Young Tea Trees, Brighton, UK 1985 Pencil on paper, 29.6 x 20.8 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Sketchbook page, September 1985 1985 Gouache over pencil on paper 29.5 x 20.7 cm Collection of James Brown Arrival of the Waterkeepers in the Season of Falling Rain 1986 Gouache, dry ground pigments, tempera on Fralkiners paper, 8.7 x 67.5 cm Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Arthur and Michelle Collins, 2010 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2009.79 Compositional Studies for ‘ Life on a Small Hill’ 1986 Gouache and pencil on sketchbook paper 110 gsm on Lanaquarelle Satine, 300 gsm, 29.5 x 20.5 cm Collection of the Artist Searching for Water in the Season of Ripening Passionfruit 1986 Gouache, dry ground pigments, tempera and shell gold on Fralkiners paper, 8.6 x 66.2 cm Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Arthur and Michelle Collins, 2010 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2009.78 Sketchbook page, November 1986, Cape York, Laura, Corypha Elata with Figures 1986 Gouache over pencil on paper, 29.6 x 20.8 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Sketchbook page, December 1986 1986 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 60 x 17.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Sketchbook page, August 1987, Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake 1987 Gouache over pencil on paper 29.6 x 20.9 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake No. 1 1988 Tempera, gouache and pigment on Arches Dessin paper, 34.5 x 24 cm Purchased 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1994.28 Sketchbook page, June 1988 1988 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 26.5 x 18.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Study for Dreaming Bodies and Dancing Snake No. 1 1988 Watercolour and pencil on layout paper, 33.8 x 24 cm or 61.3 x 49 cm Gift of the Artist 1994 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1994.28.1

Study for ‘The Art of Gliding Among Long Shadows’ 1988 Watercolour and pencil on squared up paper, 33.8 x 24 cm Collection of the Artist Fields of That Which is Hidden 1989 Coloured wax on synthetic stone on cardboard mounted on plywood, 77.6 x 106.8 cm Purchased 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1990.39 Fields of That Which is Hidden 1989 Photocopy collage, 16.8 x 25 cm Gift of the artist 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1990.20 Study for ‘Fields of That Which is Hidden’ 1989 Photocopy collage, 16.9 x 23.5 cm Gift of the artist 1990 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1990.19 Amygdaloid Amulet 1990 Dry ground pigment on tracing paper overlay on sun-dried clay with infilled designs, 6.5 x 10 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Four Fold Sign of Yearly Renewal 1990 Polychrome wax on synthetic stone on cardboard, 24 x 26 cm Collection of the Artist The Lost Songs of Eden No. 1 – The Mezin Plaque 1990 Pigment and wax on carved ‘synthetic stone’ on board, 35 x 103 cm Donated by the Artist in 2016 for the James Cook University Art Collection The Lost Songs of Eden no. 2: The Myazian Plaque 1990 Pigments and wax on carved synthetic stone on canvas covered support, 64 x 130 cm Purchased 1991 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 1991.2 On a Small Dune by the Sea 1990 Charcoal and black chalk on Barcham Green paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm Collection of Marg and Stephen Naylor Rhythmographic Plague for April 1990 Polychrome wax and pigments engraved on tracing paper overlay on clay, 12.5 x 10 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook page, October 1990 (Calendrical Plaques for April and May) 1990 Gouache over pencil with point of brush on layout paper mounted on sketchbook cartridge, 28 x 14.6 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock

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Sparsely Wooded Hillside 1990 Charcoal and black chalk on Barcham Green paper, 27.3 x 20.5 cm Collection of Marg and Stephen Naylor Study for Amygdaloid Amulet No. 2 1990 Pencil on paper, 6.5 x 9.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Study for ‘The Lost Songs of Eden no 2: The Myazian plaque’ 1990 Chalk and charcoal on two sheets of tracing paper over grass paper, 71 x 128 cm Gift of the Artist 1991 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.1991.2.1 Study for Womb-shaped Fertility Charm 1990 Pencil on paper, 7.5 x 8.5 cm Collection of the Artist Study for an Amygdaloid Amulet No. 1 1990 Drawing, pencil on paper, 6.5 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist Two Amulets for the Year’s Journey 1990 Dry ground pigment and wax on tracing paper overlay on sun-dried clay with infilled designs 11 x 8.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Working Drawing for the Lost Songs of Eden No. 1 – The Mezin Plaque 1990 Charcoal and chalk on tracing paper over ‘grass paper’, 38.5 x 100.5 cm Donated by the Artist in 2016 for the James Cook University Art Collection Composition for ‘Mixing Memory with Desire’ 1991 Pencil and gouache on tracing paper, laid on cartridge paper, 12 x 29.5 cm Private Collection of Ross Searle and Cheryl Stock Sketchbook page, April ‘91 1991 Watercolour and gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, laid on cartridge, 33.8 x 24.6 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

Compositional Studies for ‘Elevated Nocturnal Roost No.1’ 1993 Left – pencil and crayon on tracing paper; Right-pencil and gouache on cartridge paper 110 gsm, laid down on Lana Dessin 220 gsm, Left-12.7 x 8.1 cm; Right-12 x 8.1 c Collection of the artist Study for a Painting, Small Figures in a Batwing Coral Tree 1993 Left – pencil and red pencil on tracing paper; Right – gouache over pencil on layout paper, Left – 13.9 x 9 cm; Right – 13 x 9 cm Collection of the Artist Studies of a Volute Shell 1993 Pencil and watercolour on Daler-Rowney 150 gsm cartridge paper, 12.7 x 14.5cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins Transcendent Nocturnal Roost 1993 Left – Pencil, red crayon and gouache on tracing paper; Right – Pencil and gouache on layout paper 45 gsm, laid down on Reeves watercolour, Left – 13.9 x 8.1 cm; Right – 12 x 8.1 cm Collection of the Artist Brisbane International Air Terminal Mosaic Project Journal Vol.2 1993 – 1995 Photographs on paper, 30 x 23.5 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Chromatic study no. I 1994 Gouache and pencil on Ivorex board 250 gsm, laid down on 220 gsm Lana Dessin paper, 10 x 7.2cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Chromatic study no. II 1994 Collage, pencil and gouache on cartridge paper, laid down on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle paper 9.1 x 8.4 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Floor Design with Painting for Brisbane International Airport, Level Three, Outward Immigration, Mosaic Project 1994 Gouache and collage on paper, 32 x 71 cm Collection of the Artist Sketchbook Page: Studies of Moths Through Imagination 1994 Gouache over pencil on paper, 21 x 14.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer

Sketch book 1: Works related to ‘Mixing of Memory with Desire’ 1991 Mixed media – gouache, pencil on paper, 30.5 x 21.5 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

Sketchbook III Work Relating to Communion Dedicated to the Trees 1994 Ink on paper 29 x 23 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

Studies for Figures and Small Palms 1992 Gouache over pencil on sketchbook paper, 28 x 21.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Studies of Coral and Marine Life from Minoan Pottery and View of Island 1994 Pencil, gouache and pastel on sketchbook paper 110 gsm, 27.9 x 19.7 cm; Mount 63.5 x 48.4 cm Collection of the Artist

Study of Figures for ‘the Mixing of Memory with Desire’ 1992 Gouache over pencil on paper, 29 x 19.5 cm Collection of Elizabeth Springer and Ken Nevins

The Mixing of Memory with Desire 1994-1995 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigments with raised gilding and palladium leaf on gessoed wooden panel, 13.8 x 89.9 cm Purchased 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.9, 2001.10.a-e The Mixing of Memory with Desire: the Five Elements 1994-1995 Tempera, gouache and dry ground pigments with raised gilding and palladium leaf on 180 gsm Saunders-Waterford paper CP, 13.8 x 89.9 cm Purchased 2001 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2001.9, 2001.10.a-e Brisbane International Airport 1995 Mosaic section mounted on foam core, 7.8 x 9.8 cm Collection of the Artist Central Mosaic Panel for Level 3 Outward Imagination - Brisbane International Airport 1995 Cibachrome print of mosaic fabricated by Art Busters, Brisbane, 70.4 x 60 cm Collection of the Artist Photograph by Bruce Peebles. Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International airport I 1995 Pencil and gouache on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 cm Collection of the Artist Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International airport II 1995 Pencil and gouache on paper, 13.5 x 13.5 cm Collection of the Artist Designs for the Central Mosaic Motifs for the Brisbane International airport III 1995 Gouache, coloured pencil and shell gold on paper, 13.2 x 13.2 cm Collection of the artist Mosaic Sample Card from the Orsoni Glass Factory, Venice, Italy 1995 Glass mosaic tiles, vitreous, 21 x 9.5 cm Collection of the Artist Studies from Indian Temple Sculpture (Figures and Asoka Tree) 1996 Watercolour and pencil on paper, 29.3 x 19.7 cm Collection of Asoka Ranjanee Preston Studies for Bat’s Wing Coral Trees 1997 Gouache and pencil heightened with white, on sketchbook paper 110 gsm, laid down on Arches Aquarelle, cold-pressed, 300 gsm, 29.3 x 20.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Studies from Indian Temple Sculpture (Female Supplicants, Yakshi and Waterbirds Among Lotuses) 1998 Watercolour and pencil on sketchbook paper, 29.5 x 19.7 cm Collection of Asoka Ranjanee Preston

Small Glass Jug 2006 Pencil on Sketchbook cartridge, 110 gsm, laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm 20.5 x 14.2 cm Collection of the Artist

Steorra LB39, Ross Dam, Townsville 2009 Gouache, pencil and watercolour on DalerRowney 150 gsm cartridge paper, 19 x 24.3 cm Collection of the Artist

Communion to the Trees Sketchbook, Volume I and II 1998 Collage, colour photocopies, 11 x 35 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist

Study for one of The Three Graces, c 1516 After a Chalk Drawing by Raphael 2006 Charcoal and chalk on paper, 41 x 28 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons

View Through the Studio Window 2009 Pencil on Spirax cartridge 110 gsm, laid down on Lana Aquarelle 300 gsm, 12.6 x 21 cm Collection of the Artist

Sketchbook for Works After Poussin, 2007-2010 Pencil, gouache, collage, watercolour, ink, 21 x 29.7cm Collection of the Artist

Annandale: View From Across the Ross River from Sheriff Park 2009-2010 Gouache on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm, 20 x 30 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2019.0019.000 (2019.019)

Workshop Project Book for Tibetan Lettering 1998 Tibetan ink and gum Arabic, with reed pens, on Bhutanese Resho paper, 34 x 28 cm Collection of the Artist Communion to the Trees (I-VII) 1998–2000 Gouache, watercolour, dry ground pigment and gold leaf on 180 gsm Saunders-Waterford paper CP, 47.5 x 79.5 cm each Collection of the Artist

Les Bergers D’Arcadie No. 1 (1628 – 9), After Poussin 2007 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Collection of the Artist

Designs for the Cover of ‘Communion to the Trees’ 1998-2000 Gouache and gold lead on old book covers, 48 x 55 cm Collection of the Artist

Bacchanal Before a Herm of Pan, 1634, After Poussin 2008 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 150 gsm DalerRowney cartridge paper, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

Strand Redevelopment Mosaic Project 1999-2003 Photographs on paper, 30 x 24 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Monochrome Study for, In the Lagoon of Mythic Origins 1999 Gouache over pencil on layout paper, 14 x 36.5 cm Collection of the Artist Placement of Mosaic work for the ‘Strand Redevelopment Project’ Townsville 1999 1999 Pencil, white pencil and collage 29.5 x 24.5 cm; Matte 52 x 46 cm Collection of the Artist Image Layout for ‘Communion to the Trees’ 2000 Collage, colour photocopies 23 x 56 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist The Mixing of Memory With Desire no. III 2000 Top-pencil on tracing paper; Bottom – Gouache and pencil on paper, Top-6.5 x 37 cm; Bottom – 6.5 x 37 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie Study After a Votive Bronze Statuette if Isis and Serapis (Osiris) Entrined 2001 Pencil and gouache, heightened in white, on 130 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, HP, 6.2 x 7 cm Collection of the Artist Study After a Votive Clay Figure, Isis in the Form of a Serpent Goddess 2001 Pencil and gouache, heightened in white, on 130 gsm Daler-Rowney cartridge paper, HP, 7.5 x 5.5 cm Collection of the Artist Damaged – Cymatium Caudatum 2005 Pencil and gouache on Daler-Rowney 150 gsm cartridge paper, 20 x 24.4 cm Collection of the Artist

Shepherds of Arcady (in Et Arcadia Ego), 1638-40, After Poussin 2008 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Collection of the Artist The Triumph of Pan, 1685 – 6, After Poussin 2008 Gouache over sanguine chalk, on 185 gsm Arches Aquarelle, HP, 43.5 x 49.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Sketchbook for ‘Reflections on a Dawn Landing’ 2008-2009 Collage, ink, graphite, watercolour, photocopy, tracing paper, ephemera, 29.8 x 49.5cm (closed) Collection of the Artist A ‘Dawn Landing in Townsville’, 1943 after Frank Hinder 2009 Pastel, charcoal on 110 gsm Mi-teintes paper, 54.3 x 65.5 cm Collection of the Artist Dawn Landing: 1943 After Hinder 2009 Charcoal and chalk on Canson Dessin paper, 37.5 x 40.5 cm Collection of the Artist Studies for the Heads of Venus, After The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli 2009 Gouache, 43.5 x 32.5 cm Collection of the Artist The Three Graces. Beauty, After The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 9 x 9 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Smoke Rising Behind Annandale 2009 Gouache on Fabriano Rustica 185 gsm, 17.5 x 24.5 cm Collection of the Artist

The Three Graces, Chastity, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 8 x 8 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Chinese Guitar and ‘Kam-Tin’ Bowl 2010 Pencil heightened with white on Quill cartridge 110 gsm, 39.6 x 28.5 cm Collection of the Artist The Three Graces, Pleasure, after The Primavera c 1477-8 after Botticelli 2010 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 8 x 8 cm Private Collection of Tony and Debbie Fitzsimmons Succulent in a Tumbler 2010 Pencil heightened with white gouache on Quill 110 gsm cartridge paper, 39.5 x 28.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Smoke rising behind Annandale: View from Sherriff Park across the Ross River 2010 Charcoal, black chalk and soft pastel on 160 gsm Mi-teintes paper, 55 x 75 cm Collection of the Artist Top – Compositional Structure for ‘A Primitive City’; Bottom – Compositional Colour Rough for ‘A Primitive City’ 2014 Top – pencil and re coloured pencil on layout paper, 50 gsm; Bottom-pencil and gouache heightened with white on Arches Dessin 220 gsm, Top-10 x 20.5 cm; Bottom-11 x 21 cm Collection of the Artist Tubular Vase with Lilies 2010 Pencil, touched with watercolour and heightened with white on Basildon Bond paper, 29 x 21 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie Compositional Drawing for Bacchanal Before a Herm of Pan 1634, after Poussin 2011 Charcoal, pastel and conte crayon on 300 gsm University cartridge paper, 104.5 x 147 cm Collection of the Artist

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Rain Trees: Fadden Park 2011 Gouache touched with pastel on 180 gsm Saunders watercolour paper, 18.5 x 25.5 cm Private Collection of Dr Chris Mann Sketch Book 2011 Collage, ink, graphite, watercolour, photocopy, tracing paper, ephemera, 30.5 x 21 cm (closed) Collection of the Artist Chromatic study no. I for the Painting ‘Odysseus Immured in the Garden of the Divine Calypso’ 2012 Watercolour and gouache on Saunders watercolour paper, varnished and stuck down to watercolour paper, 9.3 x 14 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie

Chromatic study: Piper’s Lookout, Winter 2015 Collage, gouache and tempera with pencil overlaid with coloured pencil, varnished with Damar, on Arches Aquarelle, 300 gsm, mounted on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm paper 8.3 x 11.5 cm Private Collection of Neil and Charmaine Binnie View Across the Ross Toward the Good Shepard 2015 Gouache touched with pastel on 300 gsm Lanaquarelle HP, 12 x 30 cm Collection of Jonathan McBurnie A Primitive City: Ancient Rite Beneath a Waxing Moon 2015-16 Pencil on Officeworks sketchbook paper, 110 gsm HP, 32.5 x 71 cm Collection of the Artist

Odysseus Immured in the Garden of the Divine Calypso 2012 Graphite on vellum tracing paper, laid down on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm HP, 28 x 56 cm Collection of the Artist

View Across Wonga Court to Stuart Range 2016 Pencil on Lana sketchbook paper on Arches Aquarella HP 300 gsm, 14 x 18.1 cm Collection of the Artist

Kelso – A Corner of the Artist’s Front Garden; Framara Drive 2013 Pencil on Lana paper, 14 x 18.3 cm Collection of the Artist

Voices From a Distant Shore No.2 2019 Graphite and red pencil on Canson detail paper 55 gsm, laid down on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 38.8 x 59.3 cm Collection of the Artist

Compositional Drawing, Dance in Honour of Pan (After Poussin) 2013-2014 Conte, 104.5 x 147 cm Collection of the Artist View across the Ross River looking toward Harvey Range from Sherriff Park 2013-2014 Gouache and pastel on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 17.5 x 31.5 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc.2019.0021.000 (2019.021) Composition Study Based on ‘Primitive City’ by Edward Calvert, 1822 2014-2016 Pencil with gouache duochrome washes touched with white on 130 gsm Strathmore paper, laid down on 300 gsm Arches Aquarelle, 19 x 40 cm Collection of the Artist View of Ross River from Sheriff Park 2014 Gouache and pastel on Lanaquarelle, 300 gsm, 14.2 x 23.4 cm Purchased from the Artist, 2019 City of Townsville Art Collection Acc. 2019.0020.000 (2019.020) Sheet of Studies for Female Figure from ‘Tree-tappers Listen for the Call of Returning Moths’ 2014 Pencil, gouache and collage on Daler-Rowney cartridge 150 gsm, 29.5 x 20.8 cm; 63.5 x 48.4 cm Collection of the Artist A Primitive City: ancient rite beneath a waxing moon 2014-2016 Tempera, gouache, dry ground pigments and gold leaf on Arches Aquarelle 250 gsm, HP, 19 x 41.5 cm Collection of Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie

A Winter Garden in the Dry Tropics 2020 Collage of papers, painted with gouache and brushed pastel, stuck down to Daler-Rowney Aquafine 250 gsm mounted on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, 15.1 x 21 cm Collection of the Artist Voices From a Distant Shore 2020-2021 Tempera gouache, dry-ground pigment, and gold leaf on Lanaquarelle 300 gsm, laid down on ‘Quill’ presentation board, 34 x 56.5cm Collection of the Artist A Primitive City No. 2 2017-2019 Oil and gold leaf on linen, 55.5 x 122 cm Collection of the Artist

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Galleries Team Jonathan McBurnie

Creative Director

Erwin Cruz

Senior Exhibitions Officer

Rachel Cunningham

Senior Education and Programs Officer

Tanya Tanner

Senior Public Art Officer

Jo Lankester

Collections Management Officer

Jonathan Brown

Education and Programs Officer

Leonardo Valero

Exhibitions Officer

Chloe Lindo

Curatorial Assistant

Ashleigh Peters

Education and Programs Assistant

Michael Favot

Exhibitions Assistant

Veerle Janssens

Project Officer Gallery Collection

Sascha Millard

Gallery Assistant

Kate Burke

Gallery Assistant

Rabin Sherchan

Gallery Assistant

Wendy Bainbridge

Gallery Assistant

Abbi Thomas

Business Support Officer

A Measured Self Portrait 1983 Pencil, gouache and brushed pastel on sketch book paper, stuck down on unicorn 110 gsm, laid down on Canson WC paper, 185 gsm, CP, 15 x 12.1 cm Collection of the Artist

Robert Preston, Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955-2021

Articles inside

Chronology

Introduction and Acknowledgements

Robert Preston: A Life in Art

Foreword