Page 2999 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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conversations. That makes Hansard extremely important because it is the only true and accurate record of what was said here.
For the record, and I will probably have to say it again, the Greens actually have quite a nuanced and quite an informed approach to land management. There is no black or white. We do seek scientific advice and we do seek community participation. I do not just stand up here and say that I know everything, because I certainly do not. When it comes to making a decision about anything, it is always done after asking the people who can assist us to come to our conclusion.
Jeffrey Makin exhibition
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (6.09): Mr Speaker, at the beginning of this month I was fortunate enough to be invited to open an art exhibition at the Stephanie Burns gallery in Yarralumla which features an Australian artist of considerable local and international acclaim: landscape painter Jeffrey Makin.
Jeffrey Makin, quite simply, ranks as one of Australia’s premier landscape painters. Born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, he earned a diploma in painting from the National Art School in Sydney and a master’s degree from Deakin University in Melbourne. Mr Makin is a prime testament to the notion of individual achievement, having held several senior academic appointments throughout his career and having cultivated a thriving artistic practice that has been recognised both in Australia and throughout the world in over 60 solo exhibitions.
Amongst his many accolades, Mr Makin was artist in residence at Edinburgh university in 1990, a director of the National Art School in Sydney and has been commissioned to produce works at Melbourne university, the Hilton International Hotel in Brisbane and the hotel at Sydney International Airport, amongst many others. He is also currently an art critic of the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne. His body of work is represented in all national and state and most regional and corporate art collections around the country. And it is little wonder, as the bold and colourful scenes that he depicts reflect the depth of feeling he has towards the landscapes that he paints.
This particular exhibition contains 21 of Mr Makin’s works that were painted in the en plein air, or out-of-doors, style on recent trips to my home state of Tasmania and Victoria and Queensland. There is a unique tradition in the en plein air style of painting: a raw originality and special affinity that is produced between the artist and the subject he paints.
Mr Makin’s considerable artistic ability has been developed with highly esteemed company. In the 1970s, Mr Makin worked with Fred Williams and Clifton Pugh on capturing breathtaking scapes around Melbourne, throughout New South Wales and the outskirts of Victoria. The trio did much to cement the Australian en plein air tradition established by Melbourne’s Heidelberg school, and the exhibition that is currently in Yarralumla is testament to that.
There is also, however, a desire to more accurately record the details of landscapes in Mr Makin’s more recent works. Again, his genuine attachment to his outdoor subjects is demonstrated in his feeling of duty to faithfully capture them in his paintings. The
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