Sunday Pick: Guy Warren

Huddle, 2012, Acrylic on Canvas

Shadows, 2012, Oil on Canvas

Forgotten Singers, Forgotten Songs, 2011, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas

Dusty Road, 2012, Acrylic on Canvas

Silent Echoes, 2012, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 

Memories (Fowler's Gap) 2011, Gouache on Paper 

Guy Warren is an Australian painter.  He is 92 years old and has been painting for decades with no plan of stopping (as the below clip shows).  When I first saw his work I immediately thought Australia, not because of what I have pictured in my mind of this far away exotic locale but because of the painting I see coming out of there.  Painters like Elisabeth Cummings and Idris Murphy tie into the same sensitivity of mark and brilliance in color mixing.  In fact, my vision of Australia before seeing these painters was a much less interesting one.  Now I am quite captivated by my imagination as to just what the sense of light and shapes of the environment there 'in the bush' look like.

The clip below is quite wonderful.  It is odd in that the newscaster who visits Warren's studio seems to know nothing of what it is to be a painter.  But that strange conversation and Warren's jovial attitude stir up some really nice phrases from him about what it means to be a painter and the process and history of his painting career.