Anything Can Be Dots Painting

Formally a Chartered Accountant, my creative flare was too much for the Australian Taxation office, so much so that in 1999 I went to prison for a considerable amount of time for tax fraud. Although a horrible experience, it had its own silver lining, I discovered my love and talent for painting, and although I have had many occupations since, I now focus primarily on producing my unique style of paintings to make a living. In about 2000 after completing some very basic prison art courses (including a short 3 hour introduction to dot painting) I completed my first piece by replicating Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night as a simple dot painting. His brush strokes converted nicely into my lineal dot method and my journey began. Initially, I replicated works of the impressionists, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet. I was drawn immediately to the techniques of pointillism and the colour palette of the impressionists. Edward Munch and Pablo Picasso also had their famous images re-interpreted as dot paintings. I developed my own technique, creating depth and contrast by using a multiple dot technique in a pointillist type manner. Over time these tiny dots have grown and I have developed a two often three “dot on dot” technique. I completed an external arts degree through Curtin University and although learning the techniques of the more traditional painting methods, it was clear to me that my skills were in colour and dots, not paint strokes. Since then I have continued to reinterpret some of the world’s most famous paintings, but find most satisfaction from doing original Australian landscapes and ocean scenes. My current process involves finding a suitable image, normally with some lineal features, water, waves and rock formations transpose nicely with this method. I then draw the image onto the canvas and paint in the base colours, leaving what looks like a children’s paint by numbers piece. Then the dotting begins using old paint brushes cut down to provide the various dot sizes. The process takes between 80 to 100 hours at the canvas to complete a 600mm*900mm painting. Although time consuming this for me is also therapy, as the meditative nature of the process helps keep my Bi Polar in check.