Oil Painting
Derek Erskine
Erskine is a prolific, established Australian artist and filmmaker. His major commissions include the Coroners Court in Victoria, the Bellinzona Luxury Resort Hotel, Tolarno's Boutique Hotel, Balgownie Estate, and private collections in Australia and worldwide. Erskine's work is highly collectable and dynamic.rnrn
Artist Profile
Erskine is a celebrated and acclaimed Australian artist, as featured on Channel 9, Country Living Magazine, and The Australian Newspaper. His catalogue of works, sold and created, is in the thousands. Some are situated in the Victorian State Parliament, law offices in Sydney, and numerous hotels and apartments across Australia. His work is bold, contemporary and dynamic.
Derek Erskine is best known for his near-abstract landscape/figurative paintings, which, in the words of one critic, ‘ignite the diversity of the Australian landscape viscerally.’ Those who have experienced a long journey by car or train through rural Australia will immediately recognise where Erskine’s imaginative landscapes derive from: he paints the endlessness and vastness. Derek Erskine is now reminding collectors of the many other facets of his art; like all great artists, Erskine is an individual who, even in his early career, constantly strived to extend the boundaries of his work.
A large number of works were first publicly exhibited in Hong Kong in an early-2007 touring exhibition organised in conjunction with the Australian Consul General. Erskine is a very hard-working and organised artist who has kept all his preliminary studies, sketches, drawings, prints, and many unexhibited and unsold paintings produced since the late 1990s—amounting to a large archive of work. He concentrates on abstracted landscapes and also paints careful naturalistic studies of people, which may surprise some viewers. Another great surprise of this Asian-inspired work—especially coming as it does immediately after the muted, austere works of the late 1990s—is the way Erskine expressively applies his impressions of a wonderful life.
Artist Interview
What medium do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
I work primarily with charcoal, oil, and acrylic paints.
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
My work evolves as I create, using many techniques, layers, and much time to reduce and expand the image to a contemporary feel. I work continuously, and I love the focus required to create for exhibitions.
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
My current studio is located in the heart of the beautiful Dandenong Ranges, Victoria.
Career Highlights
- Solo Show, Hong Kong.
- Winner of the prestigious Mt. Nelson Award from the University of Tasmania, the highest academic honour available in the state.
- Commissioned to create 1200 original pieces in Daylesford at the luxury hotel Bellinzona Resort
