Art2Muse

Artworks available to view in Sydney

Bilgola Plateau artist Bruce Harkness was born of Australian parents in New York, USA, but has lived in Sydney for most of his life. Even as a young schoolboy growing up in California, his teachers encouraged him to develop his colourful renderings and drawings of the imagination. On leaving high school here in Sydney, he commenced Architecture at university, but inadvertently discovered the creative freedom of the Advertising business. Only after a long career as an advertising agency writer and art director, working on international accounts, both here and overseas in London and Brussels… and later, as a freelance graphic designer and creative consultant, was he able to pursue his passion. He was only free to commence painting seriously from around 1998.

However, whilst enjoying the stimulation and the challenge of a successful advertising career, during all that time he nurtured the ambition to ultimately become simply an artist. Basically self-taught with no full-time formal training, he attended evening classes in oil painting and life drawing at the now National Art School, East Sydney in the mid 60’s, still-life painting in acrylics at evening classes at The Royal Art Society, Lavender Bay in the early ‘90’s … with those years in between, finding spare time to experiment and develop his ideas and techniques. Up until mid 2001, he attended a one-day-a-week class with award-winning artist Sarah Aylward in Cremorne Point for 3 years – “these being the classes that gave me a belief in my creative potential”.

His illustrations of American steam trains which started purely as a hobby interest, have been published in the U.S. Whilst never employed as an “illustrator” as such, as an art director he had been honing his skills and experience in creating and visualising concepts, mainly using felt-tip pens and Pantone colour markers to produce ‘presentation’ layouts and package design in the world of advertising, marketing and corporate identity. Sadly however, today this visualising skill and process is rarely used any more, due partly to the changing culture of the advertising business and the immediacy of a vast library of photographic and visual references to manipulate on computer.

Bruce held his first solo exhibition at the Newport Beach Artworks Gallery in October 2000 where he focussed on country landscapes. In more recent years, he has turned to painting images of the local waterways of Pittwater and the beaches on Sydney’s Northern Peninsula – depicting tranquil scenes such as boat sheds reflected in water with surrounding bushland, abandoned dinghies, and different aspects of Barrenjoey headland. He works mostly on canvas in acrylics, and sometimes in oil pastels over acrylics on textured watercolour paper to create a strong sense of colour, light and a peaceful atmosphere, but with a contemporary style of composition. “What I want to make distinctive is an engaging feeling of calm and quiet mystique that comes through in my paintings”. Bruce’s paintings of actual locations have been described as “idealistic interpretations” . . . even “surreal”. Other times he may simply invent a concept or a location in his imagination. He is currently looking to a more expressive and ‘universal’ feeling in his paintings as this journey unfolds.

His work has been exhibited at the North Sydney Fine Art Gallery, McGrath’s Fine Art Gallery in North Sydney, the Ethel Street Fine Art Gallery in Seaforth, the Weswal Art Gallery in Tamworth, the McLeod Art Gallery in Braidwood, The Painter’s Gallery in Mona Vale, the Gallery ‘J’ in Bowral, and the Newport Beach Artworks Gallery. His work has also been seen at the Avalon Beach Community Centre, the Palm Beach Surf Lifesaving Pacific Club, and also at numerous private school exhibitions in recent years. He exhibits his work frequently at exhibitions held throughout the year by the Ku-Ring-Gai Art Society in St Ives, The Mosman Art Society, and at The Royal Art Society’s own gallery in Lavender Bay North Sydney.

Over the last three years he has completed privately commissioned work and his paintings are part of private collections both here, and in the US and the UK. In the September 2003 issue of ‘Australian Artist’ Journal, he was a finalist with his painting “Amish Country”, and again as a finalist in the November issue, his painting “Salt Pan Cove” was featured. At the Broken Bay Royal Motor Yacht Club’s inaugural Art Exhibition in November 2004, his painting “Pittwater Reflections” was awarded the “Highly Commended” prize by a jury of established local artists.

“At the moment, I avoid putting people into my landscapes, with the idea that the viewer will be drawn into the quiet mystery of the painting itself. Every painting is a new challenge and a source of discovery. I admire the work of so many other artists, but most notably, the wonderful Australian, French, Scottish and American impressionists”. He prefers to work in the privacy of his home studio with the sounds of nature in the background. Kerry Ane Sullivan, Melbourne fine art consultant, says of his work: “strong, challenging, stunningly evocative acrylic land and seascape paintings of a gifted artist … a must to purchase”.

Bruce is an Exhibiting Member of The Ku-Ring-Gai Art Society, The Royal Art Society of NSW Gallery Lavender Bay, Sydney, and The Mosman Art Society.