It’s been a long silence I know. I closed up my Sydney studio and stopped painting, and writing about painting, while I focussed on getting some creative writing out into the ebook world. Two down and two to go in the next couple of months, I hope. Visit the Writing Zone for more on that.

So looking forward to the Gerhard Richter at QAGOMA in a few weeks. Was too late to get tickets to the one day seminar. It looks like a great program overall, although some seriously important work is missing. Apparently it was not possible to get the Baader-Meinhof works, and not sure how much of the 60s monochrome will make it either. It is going to be interesting going back to my earlier thoughts on Richter in the light of the exhibition. Every possible thanks and gratitude to the curators at Queensland, may they receive all praise for actually getting this to happen. More on Richter-related matters soon.

Meanwhile, spring has brought the most stunning sights to our gardens. I’ve always been fascinated by flower painting, but cringed sometimes at the way it so easily becomes twee and decorative. The formalism of the Dutch flower painters is fascinating but so close to mortuary in its stillness. What I saw in the gardens this year was vivid activity and movement, bees sweeping in and out of the trees, wind blowing tiny blossoms everywhere so they covered the grey concrete paths. Maybe I should experiment. These are all photographs taken casually in one or other of our gardens in the Blue Mountains, just in the past couple of weeks. Another Mountains project? Colour? Contrast? Form? Very different from the bush monochromes I was beginning to work on.