David Collins: Artist Statement & Bio

For David Collins, painting and drawing streams from the ongoing closeness he feels with the environment. Loose and languid lines, much like the Mangrove roots that edge the Hawkesbury River surrounding the artist’s home, sprawl across the canvas in search of connection. Reaching out, they intertwine within the fold of intersections; drawing relationships between marks, colours, spaces and tones. 

In Collins’ use of line, the paint brush also acts as pencil, both utensils unified as one to be dragged across the composition in varying lengths and strengths. It is the act of tying painting and drawing together that evokes such expression, such earnest, that the familiar landscapes held dear to artist are revealed and mapped. As much as his work is about observing, it too is about feeling. We feel the vibrancy and quietening force of nature and as a result are better for it. In this way, there is also a sense of the serendipitous moment, of slowing and looking, of the inextricable relationship between the individual and the natural world - lost but perhaps not forgotten, available to you if you are available to it. 

 

David Collins is a landscape painter who has lived on an island in the Hawkesbury River, NSW, since 1987. He crosses the Hawkesbury regularly by row boat and this close contact with the river has had a deep impact on his work. 

Since 1990, David has held 16 solo exhibitions of paintings and drawings as well as participated in many group exhibitions.  David was able to further pursue a long time fascination with Chinese painting and calligraphy in 2004 when he was offered a residency and teaching position at the North West University for Minorities in Lan Zhou, China and between 2009 and 2014 he held part-time tutoring positions with TAFE NSW and Sydney Art School.

David’s most recent achievements have been –Finalist 2018, 2016 and 2015 Korea Australia Arts Foundation Art Prize; Highly Commended 2013 Wynne Prize for landscape painting from the Art Gallery of NSW; Finalist, 2016 Grace Cossington Smith Art Award; Winner, 2011 Painting Prize – Hornsby Art Prize.

David Collins: CV August, 2020 Download