My latest series, ‘Wish you were here’, is well underway and although there will be many more paintings to come, a few can now be seen on a new page in the Gallery section here on my website (including ‘Wish you were here: Manly’, shown above).
‘Wish you were here’ draws on nostalgia, and the once-popular practice of sending postcards. These wonderful pieces of cardboard are few and far between these days, not because people aren’t travelling but because postcards demand so much of us – we have to find the right card, sit down to write on it, buy a stamp and then locate a letterbox to send it (all the time knowing you’ll probably be home again before it reaches its destination). Why go to all that trouble when you can simply take a photo and post it on Instagram, reaching countless people instead of just one?
But there was a time when those few words, ‘Wish you were here’, were all that was needed, scrawled casually as they were on the back of a postcard with the name and address of the recipient, to let someone know they were in your thoughts. It was so nice find that postcard in your letterbox: a gorgeous image from some faraway place on one side, a bit of familiar handwriting on the other. It usually transported you somewhere unfamiliar, and you’d no doubt be thinking that yeah, I wish I was there, too!
I love postcards – both sending and receiving them – and I certainly love Australia. So I hope you enjoy these new pieces – my Clayton’s postcards – and that they might go some way to reminding you of the joy of a summer holiday here on Sydney’s northern beaches, and perhaps beyond!
Also coming up …
The GCS Gallery Summer Art Fair, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Gate 7, Abbotsleigh, 1666 Pacific Highway, Wahroonga (NSW), from Thursday 3 to Saturday 12 December
Hornsby Art Society’s Christmas Exhibition and Sale, Wallarobba, 25 Edgeworth David Ave, Hornsby (NSW), from Tuesday 8 to Sunday 20 December
Gallery 11:11’s Christmas Exhibition, 227 Malton Rd (cnr Malton and Norfolk roads, Norfolk Rd entry), North Epping (NSW), from Thursday 10 to Monday 21 December
CASS (Combined Art Societies of Sydney)’s ‘Art of Sydney’ Awards Exhibition, Garden Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (NSW), from Thursday 21 to Sunday 31 January 2027
Until next month!