Gary (aka Spook) James
Detour at Hwy 18.
2023
watercolour and medium on linen canvas, wood
200 x 100cm
Courtesy of the artist
Artist bio
Born 1953
Melbourne.
Diploma of Fine Art, from Victorian College of the Arts 1975
Bachelor of Arts, Honours, 2015.
Besides working as a visual artist: a painter and printmaker. I presently work for an American archaeological team as an archaeological illustrator in Cyprus on an early Bronze Age excavation site 2014 - 2022.
I have often done paintings about the Hume Highway on and off over the years, because like all of us we have all traveled it many times with enjoyment or loathing.
At present my themes about the Hume Highway are: "Ghosts of the Hume Hwy", trying to capture the comedy of the Hume, its not called The Ribbon of Death for nothing!
Artist statement
'Detour at Hwy 18: Ghosts of the Hume Hwy series, is a pathos set on the Talbot turnoff which is up the road outside Tarcutta Highway 18 takes you to the high country of the snowy mountains, mad-rough roads, a detour to--- HORROR' reflected in the face in the truck's side mirror: could be the driver, or his soul about to come to an ugly end, or ?
and half ghostly foreboding shapes in the misty craggy cliff-face of the roads mountainside.'
Gary (aka Spook) James with his artwork 'Detour at Hwy 18.' 2023. Photo: Elijah Clarke.
This artwork will be on display in the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize Finalist Exhibition from Saturday 25 November 2023 until Sunday 18 February 2024.
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