HARRY PIDGEON
NATURALLY TOUCHED
Harry Pidgeon is an award winning Australian painter of land, marine and naturescapes. His works are held in numerous public, corporate and private collections including British Royal, Australian Vice Regal and Government, and in Brazil, Chile, Canada, Japan, the Philippines and the USA.
When nature and art touch each other they become one, this is how Harry grew up in rural New England with its backdrop of thunderhead clouds, mountains, ravines, and small townships. Constantly going bush, observing nature, birds and animals he was always drawing and painting. As a keen observer of nature he was regularly painting outdoors by the age of seven with the Adult Art Education students from the Armidale Teacher’s College. From the beginning he loved the bush’s nuances and throughout his life has walked, camped, canoed, studied and painted its many discourses.
It was always Harry’s intention to be a painter and by the time he arrived at The National Art School in Sydney he was using watercolours with the force of oils. He was strongly influenced by the work of Paul Klee, Edward Hopper, Lyonel Feininger and Wayne Thiebaud, all of whom had early careers in the world of mass communications. It was no digression that after graduating Harry decided to join the then largest advertising agency in the world - the American owned J. Walter Thompson Company as a graphic artist and an art director working on national and international accounts.
In the early 80’s Harry segued to painting full time and over a 5 year period won more than 50 art awards in Sydney, Brisbane and interstate regional centres. Concentrating on exhibiting, his career now includes 28 solo or feature artist exhibitions and dozens of group shows. Galleries exhibited at include: Barry Stern, Trevor Victor Harvey, Holdsworth, Philip Bacon, Red Hill, Riverhouse, Schubert, Cooks Hill, Eddi Glastra, Bell Gallery and CAZ and Biota in Los Angeles USA. |
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Described as a Modern Realist Painter of Landscape and Nature Harry’s paintings reflect an intense ‘world of colour’. His works move with ease between those that create a feeling of unbounded space, and those that explore the intimate world of nature where birds and flowers, shapes and patterns co-exist.
Often as overviews or bird’s eye views that dispense with an horizon his marinescapes move between the solid picture plane of trawlers, jetties, and boat sheds into a three dimensional play of reflections and shadows. In these as in his landscapes and ‘overview’ landscapes instead of dissolving outline, he seeks luminosity and atmosphere within a bold construction of form.
Harry has worked and travelled extensively in the USA and Europe; has been a guest lecturer at schools and universities and has had many articles written about his work. Under licence his works have been reproduced as limited editions (Origin International Publishing Aust.), greeting cards,and placemats. |
