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1:37

Speaking from his studio in Hawthorn, painter Bill Ferguson describes the challenges of finding one’s voice as an artist, his painting style, and his painting 'The Mourning Figure' (part of the Town Hall Gallery Collection).

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Title: In the studio with Bill Ferguson #ArtistsofBoroondara

Speaker: Bill Ferguson

When I paint I work from intuition, using my imagination. That is one of the hardest things, of course, in art, is to find oneself. It is so easy to paint in the style of many mentors that one has through one’s life.

That’s the easy way; the hard way is to find out what you want to say personally.

I’m about expression, feelings, and there’s a certain abstract quality to it.

I find a path that can’t be described in words. You think you’re on the right track and you get very pleased with yourself, then you come to a fork in the road and you have to go on one way on the fork, so you find you take one turn in the fork, and you keep going on the path and you think, “oh, this is really the path,” then another fork comes up. So, it’s like travelling that sort of road all your life as a painter.

The Mourning Figure in the gallery collection is made as an image that’s very central, like a very big icon where you contemplate a presence of a figure. The figure in this case is been dulled with white ochre, and there’s a certain pinkness, a white, but there is a definite presence of a figure in mourning.

Text: Town Hall Galley #ArtistsofBoroondara
Text: Find out more at www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/arts