Forever Young

by David Bromley

People often tell me that I write the way I speak. I’m not entirely sure whether that’s a compliment. When I speak, I tend to repeat myself, hesitate, and assume I’m making far more sense than I probably am. Whenever I’m filmed or interviewed, on radio, TV, or in situations where I don’t know the interviewer, I try my best to be articulate. I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that words can scatter, be interpreted a dozen different ways, or end up sounding nothing like what I intended.

We usually think of ‘Chinese whispers’ as something that requires a long chain of people, miscommunicating a message. But the truth is, this can happen with just one person. You can feel you have communicated something quite clearly and yet when it is repeated to another person, it can be mind-blowingly different to what you have just said. Even my relationship with my phone and me speaking into the microphone can turn out quite differently than what I had intended.. still… let’s give it a go, because I’d like to share some thoughts about the paintings that form my latest exhibition “Forever Young” and a little about the story of the photographs behind them.

A few threads of life brought me to Australian photographer Colin Beard. One of them was my dear friend Christo Gillard, a man of many skills and an even better storyteller. I’ve spent countless hours in the surf with him, talking music, life, fashion, and whatever else caught his imagination that day. Christo introduced me to Kaye Perkins from Hop On It Design – Kaye was friends with Colin and had secured the rights to Colin’s photographic archive. After a conversation with Colin, she generously gave me access to a selection of his images for me to paint.

…what I received from Colin was a virtual goldmine of my musical heroes, captured in intimacy and authenticity and I’ve been given the great gift of translating those moments into paint, hoping I’ve done them justice.

When Colin Beard was out there with his camera, he wasn’t simply photographing musicians, he was among them. Yes, being a staff photographer for the Australian Rock n Roll magazine GoSet, which preceded Roling Stone, granted him access, but what mattered more was his instinct, his presence and his timing. You sometimes meet someone who has captured a rare moment with someone famous, a sliver of honesty that only happens once. But what I received from Colin was a virtual goldmine of my musical heroes, captured in intimacy and authenticity and I’ve been given the great gift of translating those moments into paint, hoping I’ve done them justice.

Hearing later from Kaye that Colin connected with my work and the way I had interpreted his photographs in my paintings was a wonderful moment. Soon more photographs arrived my way – a young Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Australia’s wild one – Johnny O’Keefe, and one of my favourite singers of all time Stevie Wright. And then… eight consecutive photographs of Jimi Hendrix in the audience at Monterey. He isn’t performing, he’s simply there – smoking, yawning, listening, absorbing. Ten minutes of ordinary humanness from one of the most extraordinary musicians who ever lived, and Janis Joplin was in the crowd too, beside Peter Tork of The Monkees. Colin wasn’t staging portraits or isolating subjects in controlled light. He was in the thick of it, moving through the same energy, chaos, smoke, laughter, exhaustion, and electricity that defined those moments.

I feel obliged to acknowledge the labour, but working on these paintings has been one of the purest highlights of my career so far.

I’ve been asked, why I didn’t pain the Beatles in this series and the answer is I haven’t gone digging to see if the Beatles ever crossed Colin’s path. What I’m painting is the world as he saw it, not a generalised portrait of an era. Some images also lend themselves beautifully to paint while others are perfect as photographs which have captured a fleeting truth, but would lose their meaning if translated onto canvas. Take Jim Morrison as example, there’s a photograph of him in an angle where you can barely recognise him, it’s agreat photograph, but it doesn’t translate into a painting that communicates Jim. And there are shots of Bon Scott with young women clambering over the stage trying to pull him toward them – to paint that would simply not do the photo justice.

Then of course there are the photos that present an irresistible challenge to paint, split second flashes of pathos, bravado, fatigue, swagger, vulnerability, defiance captured by the camera. Those are the ones I chase. Many of those images were captured by Colin of none other than the Rolling Stones! Some of my absolute heroes… taken when they were in Sydney and Melbourne… backstage in their dressing rooms because Colin was the only photographer they would allow in. Shots of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger pensive and young… journeying upwards into the superstars they are now.

People often ask what I’m working on. The truth is, most of my work is incredibly hard, but it’s also wonderfully wild, deeply rewarding, and full of joy. We’ve all heard that creativity is “90% perspiration, 10% inspiration.” With this project, it has been almost the reverse. I only add the 10% perspiration because I feel obliged to acknowledge the labour, but working on these paintings has been one of the purest highlights of my career so far.

And that’s saying something, because I still wake up every day absolutely loving what I do.

David Bromley