Mj Chameleon

Ever since I was young i`ve had a big thrill around doing creative imaginative things, playing in mums lovely gardens, imagining them to be huge landscapes where Snake eyes and Storm shadow battled in the thick undergrowth of flowering petals. Or the sandpit my father built around a frangipani tree being the ocean where ships sailed or Tonka trucks laboured. There were no VR goggles to immerse yourself in, you had to imagine it and love it.

Painting is now a medium for escapism & tool for a vision. Allowing myself to daydream, to imagine, to be taken away for a while.

Painting in its straight directionless activity is pure joy, you either love the melting of colours into new streams of gorgeousness or you couldn`t care less.

Painting directed toward a certain vision, is hard. It is serious play, but that journey releases unplanned moments of joy and spontaneous gratification as you dig into the work.

It takes planning, sketching, doodling, crafting your thought, careful drawing up, a vision for all parts of your work, and the knowledge to execute effectively, which you refine on the go. That time & labour, the aches & complexities of painting it, grappling with the challenges a painting in progress throws at you.

Y...

High school: Sydney Australia.

California State University Long Beach. 1994-5 (painting and figure drawing, black and white photography).

The Art Students League of New York. 57th Street Manhatten. 1996.
(Figure Drawing and anatomy).

National Art School Paddington NSW Australia. 1997
(Life drawing, painting, clay modelling, black & white photography).