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His first encounter with the building that subsequently became
a most vital source of inspiration was when he and a friend took
and alternative route from Cremorne to Balmoral Beach. Walking along
the foreshore via Chinaman's Beach, Ken Done recalls his delight
at discovering the small cottage:
"Suddenly, miraculously, underneath a huge tree was the most wonderful
little building that I had ever seen. It was very much in the style
of "The Wind in the Willows", but Australian. A house right by the
edge of the water on the rocks, under a spreading Morton Bay Fig
and a Camphor Laurel tree. It stood at the point where the rocks
and sand and water and beach and land all met. A perfect holiday
house or a fisherman's cottage."
By the time that Ken Done's studio, The Nook was demolished he
knew the owner of The Cabin. The Cabin had been let to a series
of tenants and Ken Done made it clear that he very much wanted to
lease it to use as a studio. His childlike enthusiasm for the Cabin
represents his joy and passion for the place. The components of
the cabin studio represented perfection for Ken Done: and exquisite
view over the Middle Harbour, marvellous trees and flowers, an exotic
paradise. The view of the upper level of the Cabin from the wooden
veranda provided Ken Done with further inspiration. It is a view
onto a myriad of light effects, the endless patterning of boats,
the drama of storms, the power and beauty in nature all from a secure
vantage point. In the area surrounding the house, he and Judy have
created an oasis of garden which Ken has painted constantly and
where in the early years there he shared with his family at weekends.
Ken Done's initial period at the Cabin had involved a great many
perceptual drawings and detailed paintings:
"After my experimentation with abstract styles, I needed to be
somewhere as concrete as the Cabin to make the paintings which some
people read as naif, but which I still see as sophisticated in that
they chose to explore, understand and express each aspect of my
visual world, the world that I could see."
In drawings such as a Basket of Shells, 1979, Ken Done is carrying
out the visual research for subsequent works. The First Fish Caught
at the Cabin, 1979, catches the pleasure of being by the water;
he also felt that it was right to celebrate this perfect silver
bream in visual terms before it was barbecued for lunch. Helmut
Shell, 1979 similarly to Basket of Shells 1979, reveals Ken Done's
fine draughtsmanship combined with patience. Australia Day, 1980
was exhibited in the Sulman Prize. In such works, Ken Done concentrates
on the painterly patterns of the figures or objects that fill the
beach.
Looking onto Chinaman's Beach and taking on the full vista across
the Middle Harbour jostling with the action and movement of boats
these works celebrate life and capture the energetic passion of
Sydney Harbour. Incorporating also the plant forms from this garden
(Morning Glory, Frangipani, Hibiscus) as a border with the wooden
trellis work of the verandah, Ken Done succeeds in conveying a scene
that pulsates with life. The energy inherent in Done's approach
to art parallels his passion for Sydney Harbour as the single greatest
inspiration for his work. Chinaman's Beach from the Cabin, 1981
evokes the optimism and generosity of spirit that characterises
all of his work.
Sunday, 1982 captures Ken Done's early preoccupations:
"This was one of the early series of paintings done when I first
moved in (to the Cabin). What many people may not understand is
that I deliberately chose to paint this picture in a kind of naive
style. I simply wanted to show in a very straightforward way how
much I loved all of the things in the studio. The view from the
window, the pattern of the clouds, the Frangipani, the paint, the
palette, the shells, the postcards, the pattern of the people on
the beach and of course the myriad of colours and shapes of the
sailboats on the harbour. I still work from this yellow table. The
frangipanis each summer bloom again and in some ways I am constantly
repainting this particular scene. The paintings from 'The Cabin'
now have evolved to a more complex stage, but I hope they all convey
this essential feeling I have for my environment."
Paintings such as Wet Sunday, 1984 and Looking East 1989, run counter
to the optimistic, colourist works done at the cabin studio in the
early 1980s and for which Ken Done is well known. Painted on overcast
days these works express the reflective poetic response of the artist,
who as a painter explores the wide range of mood and visual phenomena
of the Harbour around the year. It is not possible to view these
works without recalling Turner, Whistler, or in Sydney itself, Lloyd
Rees. All are painters greatly admired by Ken Done, whose influence
he readily acknowledges.
Ken Done has always drawn inspiration from music in his painting,
and feels a particular affinity with Jazz, especially in the music
of his trumpeter friend James Morrison, and the lyrical tones of
Ray Charles. Ray Charles at the Cabin 1985, presents his musical
hero as a larger than life figure at the piano, alluding to the
manner in which music can fill physical and emotional space. He
seeks colours and shapes that run closely parallel to the musical
experience offered by Ray Charles. Indeed, as this particular painting
and others dedicated to Ray Charles confirm, Done makes numerous
connections between painting and music. Here the keys of the piano,
musical notes, are painted as tubes of paint, colour. Ken Done reveals
a boyish adulation for his heroes, mentors, and muses, alive or
dead, so that Ray Charles, Matisse, Nolan, Lloyd Rees, Turner, Bonnard,
as well as his parents, wife and children, inhabit the studio in
various forms. Books, photographs, postcards, compact disks, help
to create a microcosm for the artist, a world within a world.
Here essentially is a place in which privacy and the sources of
creative inspiration are jointly maintained. Done paints beautiful
images in celebration of life. Yet he remains acutely aware of the
willing sacrifice that his father's generation made in World War
II, to enable Australians to live and prosper as they do today.
To this end, he privately paints a special tribute each Anzac day
to all those who gave up their lives for liberty and democracy.
In Windsurfing on Anzac Day 1983 he confronts the carnage and destruction
that Australian servicemen suffered and witnessed during this war.
Painting from the Cabin on Anzac Day 1996, is made up of a group
of six small paintings. Ken Done uses the wooden trellis on the
cabin verandah to frame images of boats on intensely coloured seas
and with passionately depicted skies to establish metaphors for
human struggle towards the ultimate triumph of harmony and peace.
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