John Allgood

I have maintained an interest in all forms of art since I was young, but I find the physical action of painting the most rewarding. I just love mucking around with paint.

Under pressure from the grandkids in 2019 we relocated to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland from the Yarra Valley in Victoria, and a lifelong interest in painting which had never really stopped, but had diminished somewhat, has been rekindled.  Consequently, I now find myself with a garage/studio that seems to breed paintings.  In Victoria I had a studio gallery at home, and I was a member of The Sherbrook Art Society.

The society owned and operated a large gallery in the Dandenong ranges outside Melbourne.  My work was continually exhibited there for a number of years, and at times in galleries in Warrandyte and Eltham in the Yarra Valley, along with various art shows and solo exhibitions including R.A.C.V. Country Club at Healesville.

Although I always had an interest in art I did not take up painting till late in life, and I am mostly self taught.  My technique has developed over the last twenty odd years along with my knowledge and understanding, about both painting and the way our vision of life affects the paintings we create.

This understanding is confirmed when I am painting, and in that groove where you feel the painting just flows, and I know the work is somehow being done through me but not by me.

These words of a Chinese scholar written in the 9th century reflect my approach to painting.  “He who is attached to his work and wields the brush with a will to make a painting is doomed to failure.  He who moves the brush without being conscious of painting, touches the secret of the art.  His hand will not grow stiff nor his heart become fixed, and his work will be accomplished without him knowing how it was done.”

PAINTINGS

Acrylic on M.D.F. board, generally with a perimeter support frame behind, similar to stretched canvas.  Obviously, they can be framed if required.  The work involves the use of background texture to help create the final painting, and the trowelling techniques using pallet knife or metal blade.  This makes the use of stretched canvas difficult, as I require a hard surface on which to paint. 

However, it produces a range of options and visual effects that differ from traditional painting techniques.

The works are mostly landscapes but not in the traditional sense.  After a lot of travelling, mostly around Australia, I find that the paintings seem to come through me, and reflect visual memories of places, emotions, and times that appear in all other respects to have been forgotten.

Click here to see available artworks by John Allgood