I’ve often been asked why I became an artist. It was just a natural thing, I always wanted to draw, just as almost every kiddy does. But with me it just stuck, and all through school I liked drawing much better than any of the other lessons., as a matter of fact I was very poor at the other lessons. In the town of Newcastle where I lived there were no opportunities to study art, so I took the next best thing. I became apprenticed to an architect. Although that was mechanical drawing, in a way it satisfied me for the time being.
Then I was able to come to Sydney later on, and I gave away architecture and started to study art at an art school.
As you go through studying, you get more and more keen, and then – well, you just get into it. I went away to England on scholarships and studied abroad and saw the best works all around the world. It really becomes a mania, eventually, in art.
I have often been asked what it is that makes me want to paint certain people. Well, I think, first of all, it’s the interesting form, the sculptural form of the person and the strong characters of a person, the strong individuality. And I strive for that. I don’t know whether other artists do it or not, but personally I like to fit them to my style. I see them as my style of painting and try to bring that style first. It’s a sculptural technique, more like sculpture than painting. And if I see those things in a person, well, I strive for it like a piece of sculpture. I particularly like the Gothic type of sculpture, and I try to get that into my better works.
