WHEELER, Eve
MEET THE ARTIST: Hobie Porter

Biographical information
Tweed artifacts newsletter, Vol.9, No.2, June 2008

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life it’s refreshing to pause for a moment in the world of local artist, Hobie Porter.

A quiet and thoughtful man, Hobie lives and works closely with nature in his light filled studio set amongst lush rainforest beside Cedar Creek, under the watchful gaze of Mt Warning. However, after yet another sell-out of paintings showcased at Arthouse Gallery in Rushcutters Bay, Hobie is being kept very busy painting works for his 2009 Tweed river Art Gallery exhibition ‘Dry Rain’, to be staged as part of the gallery’s twentieth birthday celebrations.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Hobie Seeks out micro-elements, and places them within a macrocosmic landscape. He says “We gather so many things around us, but for what purpose; to try to immortalise them on our shelves? I call that a folly”. He adds “everything is in flux, subject to change”. With this in mind, in 2004 Hobie began an exploration of what he could do with a leaf, and three years later he is still coming up with new and interesting ideas. When asked “Why leaves” Hobie replied “I chose the leaf because it is discarded, rots and changes, is something small, yet when combined with creative thought it can represent different things.” And of the clouds that also feature so often in his paintings, Hobie says “their ephemeral properties intrigue me – I like the ensuing irony in trying to capture them”.

Hobie describes himself foremost as an artist, then a teacher. A Visual Arts Honours graduate of Southern Cross University (SCU), Hobie completed a Graduate Diploma of Education in 2002. He was awarded a Henry Lawson Scholarship, to study [visual art there, and] at the Pratt Institute in New York and, while his study at SCU had been mainly post-modernist, it was in New York he learned about traditional art and the old ways. Since returning, he has taught at high schools, SCU and the Young and Powerful school for indigenous students. Hobie has also been generous with his time tutoring the next generation of emerging artists in workshops at our Gallery. He says “teaching has helped to clarify who I am and what I can give. I believe there is nothing like teaching to increase one’s own learning-to sharpen me up”.

Through the visual arts network, last year Hobie was selected to be a part of the ABC’s Painting Australia. The concept for each episode was to take three emerging artists to a secret locationwhere they would create a spontaneous painting for the cameras. “The experience was incredible” says Hobie “we had to conceive, develop and resolve a work in two days, whilst also meeting the demands of the film crew.” This proved quite a challenge, considering Hobie takes around two to three weeks to complete a painting. He painted a finely detailed painting of the landscape before him, but with only hours to spare incorporated a huge water tank that dominated the landscape as it rose up from behind a mountain range. The addition of the tank flipped the whole concept from a very pleasing landscape to a very strong environmental message. Co-incidentally, the American Academy Award-winning documentary film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth was released earlier that year, which aligned the focus of the painting.

Recently described by former gallery director, Gary Corbett, as ‘an emerging artist of great talent’, Hobie readily admits he originally ’fell into art’. As a student, he was introduced to the works of Picasso. Hobie found himself getting up very early to allow time to paint for a couple of hours before starting his normal day. He enjoyed the energy of it all, maintained faith in his own ability and had a niggling feeling that other people, not just Picasso, could be successful. And, if Hobie Porter’s success as an artist to date is anything to go by, it would appear that observation was correct.