James Guppy, 1954 | Surrealist painter

Born in London, James Guppy has moved to Australia since 1982 and lives in Byron Bay. He has a BA (Hons) in Economics and a Masters in Visual Arts from the UK.

- "When we think of European art, one of the first images that comes to mind is of a richly coloured and modelled oil painting - a portrait, landscape or still life. The illusion in this painting is so real that we feel a heightened sense of the material world: the work seems to be a window into another space.

Throughout my career I have been asking myself whether this heritage has any relevance now. Since the development of photography, the role of figurative painting in portraiture and as social chronicle has all but died and the craft of illusionary painting has become largely relegated to the backwaters of romantic nostalgia and reactionary historicism".

- "Painting in general will clearly continue; but have the figurative traditions of illusionism been technologically outflanked by photography, film and computer generated imagery? Frankly, I don't know and I sometimes wonder at the quixotic nature of my need to find a contemporary relevance for these pre-modernist styles of depiction.

My paintings are all in acrylic. I love oils but the facility I gained as a mural artist working with fast drying paints means I can get the same effects as oils quicker, without worrying about the more complex chemistry of oils. I also get a sort of perverse pleasure creating paintings that can look like they were painted in one medium when in fact they were painted in another.

I use different strategies to develop the subject matter for each series of works. I begin with a point of fascination and the scent of an idea".

- "This period of tracking down the vision may take weeks or years. I will return to themes from years ago if I think I might have something more to add or a new take on it. There is then a slow stumbling towards the form and how the idea or vision might be made to work successfully.

Some works begin with thumbnail sketchs of inner visions and ideas with no models in the outside world (ie. It's all "made up"). As often as not, I am a merciless appropriator, constructing my paintings from details taken from old photos, old masterpieces, flower catalogues, magazines etc.

Some works require the use of models either in conjunction with appropriated material or on their own. In these cases I will either photograph or work from life, whichever is appropriate".

- "The actual execution of a painting begins with a fairly clear vision. At any one time my studio walls are covered with many canvases in varying stages of completion.

When I get "stuck" on a work, I either begin a new one or return to a piece in progress on the wall. I usually have about twenty canvases in various stages of completion. I get "stuck" a lot.

Quite a few works "in progress" will actually end up permanently unresolved waiting in the reject pile till I can reuse the canvas.

The actual execution begins by covering the white gesso with a coloured ground. This might be anything from black, burnt sienna, terra verte or scarlet. I then carefully grid up my design and transpose it to the canvas using white conte.

The first coat of acrylic is applied thick with no water. Subsequent layers are more and more diluted and the brushes tend to get smaller and more delicate as I progress. I usually varnish with two coats of dilute acrylic medium and a final coat of Paraloid varnish.

Paintings are rarely "finished" rather it's the case that I give up and hope that I can resolve the next one a little better. The work then is declared "finished" often by my deliberate signing of it. This stops dead any tendency I might have to continue toying with the piece".

Nato a Londra, James Guppy si è trasferito in Australia dal 1982 e vive a Byron Bay.

Per i primi quindici anni della sua carriera Guppy è stato un artista murale per puoi convertirsi alla tela, poiché gli piaceva trovare le sue opere per le strade.

Nel corso della sua carriera, l'argomento di Guppy è variato da momenti surreali, scene di tensione, esplosioni fluttuanti, donne formidabili ed esseri antropomorfi, tutti eseguiti con un approccio raffinato e intelligente, che appaiono sia drammatici che realistici.

Una parte del fascino delle opere di Guppy risiede nella sua capacità di trasmettere l'impossibilità tangibile, sia che si tratti di cercare di rappresentare la fluidità della sessualità creando generi alternativi (1998); produrre immagini di lavoratori che inchiodano alla sabbia il bordo dell'oceano (2002); o ritrarre uomini in giacca e cravatta che navigano in oceani ruggenti, paesaggi pastorali, paesaggi apocalittici e nuvole cariche di suspense, pur rimanendo disconnessi dal mondo che li circonda mentre svolgono i loro "affari" (2014-2015).

Rupert Bunny | Colorist / Symbolist painter

Australian painter Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (1864-1947) was one of the most successful expatriate artists of his generation.

No other Australian artist achieved the critical acclaim that he enjoyed in Paris. An erudite painter of ideal themes, and the creator of the most ambitious Salon paintings produced by an Australian, Bunny is an exotic in the history of Australian art.

An exhibition, Rupert Bunny artist in Paris, curated by Deborah Edwards, Senior Curator of Australian Art, will honour the work of this great Australian artist.

The exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales will showcase more than 85 of his most significant paintings, many unseen in Australia, including works from the Musée d’Orsay and Fonds national d’art contemporain in Paris and private lenders including Kerry Stokes, Jeffrey Archer and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

Dora Meeson (1869-1955)

Dora Meeson was an Australian artist and an elected member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London, England.

She was a member of the British Artists' Suffrage League.

Although born in Melbourne, Dora Meeson moved with her family to London as a child, and commenced her art studies at the Slade School.

In 1895 she returned to the antipodes and spent two years at Melbourne's National Gallery School, where she met her future husband, George Coates, before returning again to Europe just as Coates won the Travelling Scholarship.

Jane Sutherland (1853-1928) | Impressionist painter

Jane Sutherland was an Australian landscape painter who was part of the pioneering plein-air movement in Australia, and a member of the Heidelberg School. Her advocacy to advance the professional standing of female artists during the late nineteenth century was also a notable achievement.

Jane Sutherland was born in New York to Scottish parents; the family emigrated to Sydney in 1864 and moved to Melbourne in 1870.

Bessie Davidson | An Australian Impressionist in Paris

Bessie Ellen Davidson (1879-1965) was an Australian painter🎨 known for her impressionist, light-filled landscapes and interiors.

Davidson was born on 22 May 1879 in North Adelaide, South Australia, to a family of Scottish and English origin.

In 1904, after her mother's death, she went to Europe to study art in company with Preston.

They spent the first few months in Munich, where Davidson studied briefly at the Künstlerinner Verein, before moving on to Paris.

There she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, under René-Xavier Prinet🎨, where she met and began a lifelong friendship with Philippe Besnard's future wife, Germaine Desgranges. She also took classes with Raphael Collin, Richard Miller and Gustave Courtois.

Jim Tsinganos | Surrealist / Conceptual painter / Illustrator

Jim Tsinganos is a Sydney🎨 based Illustrator with over 20 years experience who has had 2 working stints in Amsterdam.

He is the recipient of numerous awards, both locally and internationally and is represented in the UK and the US. Working primarily with pastels and watercolor, he is interested in creating work with a strong conceptual basis.

Robert Hagan, 1947 | Plein Air painter

Robert Hagan raised in the lush, languorous sub-tropical northern New South Wales, Australia and educated at Newcastle University, he communicates in a typical offhanded Aussie manner.

Widely traveled with studios in Suffolk, England, San Diego, USA, Southport, Australia and Pattaya, Thailand.

Robert goes about his art with confidence, humility and pragmatism.

He explains, "When you look at things you tend to concentrate on one element, a boy or girl at the waters edge, for example".

Arthur Streeton | Impressionist painter

Sir Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) was one of the foremost Australian Impressionist painters, and his paintings continue to count among the most iconic images of Australian art.

Streeton’s artistic training began aged 15, with night classes in design at Melbourne’s National Gallery School, while he worked as an office clerk and, later, as an apprentice lithographer.

He read amateur art manuals imported from Europe and America that encouraged painting en plein air.