Neville Connor is a man of many talents. He studied art at East Sydney Art School and later at Camden Art School in London. It was from this point in his life that he travelled and worked as a professional jazz musician and painter all around the world and later in Sydney. Now living on the South Coast, he devotes all his time to painting and still regularly plays in jazz groups.
This morning I visited Neville in his studio, his very private domain which houses an abundance of art. Large paintings, both completed and unfinished, multiple sketch journals, hundreds of beautiful painted plein air studies and copious amounts of brushes and paint.
Neville had taken out all his paintings to sort and and review any unfinished work, of which there were numerous. “I like to start paintings…..” I chose the perfect time for a visit. The canvases and boards were spread, literally all around the house filling every wall space, floor space and table top. Colour wheels , stacks of photos, sketches , palettes, and coffee cups were scattered amongst this Aladdin’s cave of creativity.
Neville is prolific in his quest to paint. Periodically , he loads up his motorcycle with his nifty compact paint box, easel and the bare essentials and heads off to familiar territory of the Western Riverina town of Hay where he grew up. He paints on small boards, each study a beautiful painting in itself. These he uses for constructing compositions on a much larger scale. They are paintings that will never be sold.
These little gems are the ‘secret ingredients’ for his art works. Hundreds and hundreds are hidden away for Neville’s eyes only and one can only imagine the vast amount of stimulus these provide for limitless possibilities. Perhaps one day he will share these exquisite paintings with the world. They are fresh and spontaneous and capture the true essence of the places he visits.
His journals contain volumes of beautifully rendered pen and ink and pencil drawings but an equal number are quite gestural and intentionally loose. These allow for an improvisation of the landscape as details are often quite scant.
When asked what his favourite medium was….”they each offer something different. Pastels for their immediacy of colour, acrylics for their ease of use and fast drying time, watercolour because you can’t often control what the paint wants to do and oils ….they are just hard work… but the paint is so luscious to work with.’ Neville predominately paints landscapes and working with a limited palette , his work is distinctive. His landscapes and figurative paintings sit comfortably in both traditional and contemporary genres.
To find out more about Neville Connor’s work see the link below.
http://www.shoal.net.au/~connor/Welcome.htm
https://www.gallery247.com.au/neville-connor
http://www.bwall.id.au/Connor_Neville_Index_Page.htm