“There is a "total experience" in a Stallard painting, a similar notion that no part of the painting is bland, or subordinate, or to be passed over. Stallard's work is very painterly indeed. His oil-paint is applied with a fluid lushness, a sensuousness, that recalls 1960’s Brett Whiteley.”

Peter Pinson.

“An exhibition that's come out of one beautiful song, I was living in Bristol when Elvis Costello wrote this for Robert Wyatt in the early 80's, the Falklands war was raging, we used to burn furniture to keep warm in the squat... I was working as a dishwasher, hung off cliffs every spare minute, then went back to Sydney where I worked around the shipyards in Garden Island and the Newcastle steelworks & shipyards, this song has opened the floodgates..... A song can change your life” Philip Stallard March 2016.

Evoking Elvis Costello’s ‘Shipbuilding’ Philip Stallard’s latest show delves into memories of an industrial landscape, especially the terrible beauty of urban Sydney and Newcastle.

Just as the song is haunting and evocative, the decay of a dying industrial landscape framed by a beautiful harbour, Stallard’s abstractions are relevant today, with the closing of the Newcastle ship yards the exhibition is a poignant farewell to a controversial era.

Phil’s art dwells on full colour! It has the full gambit of impact vs the meditative. White themed paintings emerge as a new initiative for the artist and the minimal yet expressive brushstrokes inspired from his Japanese art studies appear!

Phil’s focus previously was on the landscape which has evolved to abstraction. As he says ‘a 100% emotional feeling is injected into his art’. If he doesn’t fell it, it is soon over painted” He is excited about this new direction and where it will lead and states that it is ‘a maturing’ that he has felt!

In his search for something new in his art he has found the colour white, which he regards as a break through!

His subject matter:-Phil early history of employment lead to his fascination of decay of materials and surfaces. As a ‘fitter’ in the maritime repair and dismantling based in Sydney at Garden Island’ and ‘Cockatoo Island docks’ he had the dirty role of working with the metal surfaces so tortured by salt water and spray. He identified with the rusted metal and decay and immediately saw the beauty! Ship building showed him an exhaustive array of colours, textures and impact especially with the scale of the work within hulls of ships. He calls it a ‘terrible beauty’ an urban decay, however it was just this that held the fascination and links to his art!

Phil describes himself as an ‘emotional abstractionist’. I see energy, excitement, space, power and an involvement with the paint surface, a sensuality of his paint application contrasted with spontaneity!
It is the later I always seek in Phil’s art. A richness of the medium, experimentation combined with his zany personality is infectious as his enthusiasm for his art.

Stallard’s art represents good buying, providing an entry point for young buyers or value conscious art buyers. His style and the impact of his style will refresh any interior with bursts of colour and tone.

Phil’s art dwells on full colour! It has the full gambit of impact vs the meditative. White themed paintings emerge as a new initiative for the artist and the minimal yet expressive brushstrokes inspired from his Japanese art studies appear!

Phil’s focus previously was on the landscape which has evolved to abstraction. As he says ‘a 100% emotional feeling is injected into his art’. If he doesn’t fell it, it is soon over painted” He is excited about this new direction and where it will lead and states that it is ‘a maturing’ that he has felt!

In his search for something new in his art he has found the colour white, which he regards as a break through!

His subject matter:-Phil early history of employment lead to his fascination of decay of materials and surfaces. As a ‘fitter’ in the maritime repair and dismantling based in Sydney at Garden Island’ and ‘Cockatoo Island docks’ he had the dirty role of working with the metal surfaces so tortured by salt water and spray. He identified with the rusted metal and decay and immediately saw the beauty! Ship building showed him an exhaustive array of colours, textures and impact especially with the scale of the work within hulls of ships. He calls it a ‘terrible beauty’ an urban decay, however it was just this that held the fascination and links to his art!

Phil describes himself as an ‘emotional abstractionist’. I see energy, excitement, space, power and an involvement with the paint surface, a sensuality of his paint application contrasted with spontaneity!
It is the later I always seek in Phil’s art. A richness of the medium, experimentation combined with his zany personality is infectious as his enthusiasm for his art.

Stallard’s art represents good buying, providing an entry point for young buyers or value conscious art buyers. His style and the impact of his style will refresh any interior with bursts of colour and tone.

1992 Glebe Art Prize for Oil Painting - First Prize
1991 Waverley Woollahra Art Prize for Local Subject - First Prize

KT Kierney Sydney Australia
Resmed Sydney Australia
Marriot Hotel – Circular quay Sydney Australia
Amsterdam
New York
Japan

1982 Art Certificate, Hornsby Technical College

Boilermaker

1997 "Westward Home" Centrepiece feature Metro, Sydney Morning Herald 25-7-97.
1998 Snapshot - A.B.C.T.V. "Sea Stories" feature
1999 Stay In Touch "The Good Oil", Sydney Morning Herald