Early Influences
- Can you tell us a little about your childhood and how growing up around Kununurra shaped you as an artist? – I always found myself drawing, I wouldn’t say I “loved” it so much as that’s just what I naturally found myself doing all the time – sort of a compulsion. As a kid I’d always end up scribbling, drawing, sketching and it would feel like the thing I was supposed to be doing (usually instead of homework or chores). Growing up in Kununurra I found a great friend who was also an artist so we ended up drawing most of the time – that grew into me developing an interest in painting, which I assumed was the next natural step as I couldn’t quite make my pictures “real” with just pencils – enter the lifelong trauma of trying to make Oil Paint do what I want! On a visual level – being pulled towards painting as a natural progression of drawing as a child was unavoidable for someone with some artistic bent, the landscape and colours of the Kimberley region of WA are so stunning, so powerful that it made a lasting imapact on the way I see the world
- What are some of your earliest memories of making art? My earliest memories of making art were drawing on the floor with my Dad, on big rolls of paper that he bought back from work
- Was there a particular moment when you realised painting would become a major part of your life? My first rejection letter when I sent a bunch of paintings of Dragons to Penguin Books Australia, I assumed I needed to paint more to get good enough that they’d hire me. I didn’t realize they cannot hire 11 year olds.
- As a self-taught artist, what motivated you to develop your skills independently rather than through formal art school? To be honest, a lack of attention to whatever anyone tries to teach me – I only really learn from doing things myself, plus sheer stubbornness
Creative Process
- How would you describe your artistic style to someone who has never seen your work? I never know how to explain my style, but a few people have said it resembles painterly watercolour, cartoon realism, and whimsical draftsmanship. I like to think it’s Contemporary Landscape Romanticism with immediate/plein-air Oil Techniques rather than an Old-Masters approach relying on layers and layers of glazing
- What draws you to realism as a painter? I am horrible at abstract
- Can you walk us through your process from first inspiration to finished artwork? My first inspiration is usually being in a place, and feeling “Yes” there’s got to be something here to capture – the world is an amazing place, there is so much to paint, I just keep moving until I find the next great scene
Life Outdoors
- You spend a lot of time painting outdoors. What do you love most about plein-air painting? Plein-air painting is both a challenge and a relief – fighting the moving light and the elements, while settling on a scene and painting it in one sitting does require some effort for me, but if I snag a good angle and create a good piece, the wonderful feeling of finishing a painting that I’m happy with in an hour or so is so amazing that it inspires me to push on with the studio pieces, which sometimes drag on for days, weeks or months
- What are some of the biggest challenges of painting in the field? I find my biggest challenge is finding the right angle, the right scene – I’ve started using a little viewfinder though for some reason it feels like cheating. But there is always the accident of not packing enough paint, spilling my medium, or the wind knocking everything over…
- Have you had any memorable adventures while painting in remote locations? I’ve had adventures with artists friends going to and from locations, and the banter together when painting, but the most memorable plein-air outing was painting alone in Mirima national Park in Kununurra alone, returning there decades after playing amongst the rocks and waterfalls as a child – I spent hours capturing the red-orange rocks and bright green spinefex of what felt like home
- Is there a particular Western Australian landscape that keeps calling you back? The beach is always calling me to paint it. As much as I love the Kimberley, I decided against basing myself there for the forseeable future as I love being by the beach
Fremantle & Local Connection
- What is it about Fremantle that inspires you creatively? Fremantle has a special place for me. After moving back to Perth for high school, I felt Fremantle had the same “frontier” feeling, not the best way to explain it, but a melting pot, always something new with lots of opportunities, activities, and a heap going on. A very strange comparison but hey that’s how I felt back then. The bulk of the galleries I deal with are and have been in Fremantle, including my own for a time until I decided to try rural lifestyle (2 degree winter temperatures did not agree with me)
- How has the Fremantle arts community influenced your career? A vast part of my art career IS Fremantle and the Fremantle Arts Community. From Working at a Framer on High Street, my earliest days with the Artisan Store, delivering unending numbers of canvases to Studio11, Multiple group shows at the Moores Building, personally running multiple Art Markets in High Street mall and beyond, to having the Fremantle Town hall as my studio for several years (My family started calling me Mr Fremantle..) – Fremantle has, and I think always will be, the centre of my arts practice in terms of outward-facing exposure
- What makes Western Australia such a special subject for artists? Vast, open skies and so many amazing locations. WA is BIG and there is such a huge variety of landscapes to paint, calm, rugged, familiar, distant – it’s all there
Behind the Paintings
- Which painting are you most proud of and why? The next one, because it is going to be better than the last one
- Is there a painting that was especially difficult to complete? The hardest ones are always the ones I don’t expect and more often than not it is when I approach a painting thinking “oh I can walk my way through this one” without really checking the composition or colour balance, or picking a really really bad reference photo. Several Commissions involving people have been extremely hard, but the ones of those that I find easy always seem to be received amazingly well. So, it appears there’s no rhyme or reason to it
- What emotions or experiences do you hope viewers take away from your work? I would hope that everyone viewing my work would feel some connection to, or sense of being in the places that I’m trying to capture – some appreciation of the beauty – not of my work but of the amazing world around us that I try to capture, and I would hope that people living with my work on their walls would feel the same feelings coupled with some small joy just passing their eyes over my pieces in randomly going about their day
- How do you know when a painting is finished? There is definitely a point in most of the works I do where I either think A) I’ve spent enough time on this, and more will ruin it, or b) adding more will add too much information / refine the piece too much and start to drown out the “painterly” aspects
The Artist’s Journey
- Looking back, what have been some of the biggest milestones in your career? There have been many, but I think the biggest standout for me would be my first solo show with Emerge Gallery when they had a premises in Mount Lawley. They had taken a chance on me as they only take on artists into their stable who are fresh out of University. I haven’t been to University but they liked me and my work so gave me a shot. I took the gamble and showed a whole new exhibition of dark brooding nightscapes as I was battling insomnia. The show was a complete sellout on opening night. The following day my late Grandmother visited the gallery to view my exhibition and informed me that the building was once quarters for Nursing Students, and in fact her first accommodation upon moving to Perth to study
- How has your work evolved over the years? I feel as if my work evolved to a technical point enough that I was able to push more into the painterly aspect – a good foundation in perspective and draftsmaship gave me the bones to build a new painterly technique that I am still now working on whilst retaining solid landscape principles
- If you could give one piece of advice to emerging artists, what would it be? You only fail at being an artist if you stop. You’ll only succeed if you don’t stop. It is a rollercoaster and there will be an immense sense of self-doubt. Keep creating art anyway. My best pieces over all the years were painted in the times of my life with the most turmoil
Personal Insights
- What inspires you outside of art? Don’t get me started on Aquaponics. In a small duplex in Melville I was growing 150 one kilogram trout and barramundi per year, whilst supplying my little family (and chickens, and quail, and rabbits..) with all the fresh veggies and greens we needed. There is also woodworking – not so much creating anything with the actual wood. Just being in the shed ripping big pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood with noisy machines then making them smooth with other noisy machines.
- How do you recharge creatively when you’re feeling stuck? The only thing that ever works is just putting paint on. No matter what as soon as I put paint onto the canvas I either get excited or annoyed and keep painting, then very quickly an hour or two has passed and an artwork starts to appear
- If you weren’t an artist, what do you think you’d be doing? If I wasn’t an artist I would be a happy wealthy property developer, owning multiple houses and flying the world eating caviar and shopping for yachts. But I like how oil paint smells and I can’s stop painting – my eyes constantly look at this world around us and figure out “how would I paint that”
Looking Ahead
- What excites you most about your work right now? Leaning into a more painterly technique, I am being more ruthless with paint tubes I have been collecting and hoarding for over 20 years
- Are there any new subjects, locations, or projects you’d like to explore in the future? Despite spending most of my time lately in my studio in Bali and painting plein-air on the beaches there for my (plug plug!) YouTube channel, I’ve recently started messing with a few outback scenes which I know is just the subconscious and inevitable pull to go back to Kununurra with my brushes and paint the Kimberley
- What’s next for Ben Sherar? I’m quite confident in the studio at the moment, so happy painting studio pieces for Galleries and Clients – there’s a Marina and a Yacht Club on my radar and a run of Outback pieces in the works. But the immediate future is two months painting plein-air on the beaches in Bali – two weeks of Perth winter were enough for me, I need some sun!!!