Two local artists - one an Australian art star and the other a retired opera singer - didn't overthink the title for their upcoming joint exhibition, 'New Paintings'.
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Given their names alone will almost certainly draw an enthusiastic crowd to Clifton School of Arts this Friday, there wasn't really any need to.
Thirroul's Paul Ryan is an Archibald finalist many times over, while his friend and former neighbour David King is a one-time baritone with Opera Australia.
The show is made up of their two solo collections, which will hang on different levels of the building, and one team effort, a painting in which Ryan adds his signature Beastie Boys-style figures to the foreground of King's Port Kembla steelscape.
In the upstairs section, Ryan's canvases feature fresh takes on the place that's been his muse for the past 30 years.
"One of the long, enduring scenes of mine is the landscape of the northern Illawarra in different times of day, with different atmospheric effects," he said.
This includes the eerie nocturnal hours, with night skies, pitch black mountains and southern lights (inspired by the recent aurora that lit up the nation's skies) all recreated in his inimitable "punk impasto" style.
"There's a little painting called 'Solar Storm', which has a balloon-like figure in it," he said.
"And I started introducing some of those pinks and greens from the solar storm into the background of some of my other landscapes.
"It's really just me finding other interesting ways and different colors to use to paint this landscape."
The result is more than a dozen new paintings of our moody and mysterious Pacific Ocean.
Violent seas drive a sailing boat towards land in a nod to English romantic artist JWM Turner in one new piece; calm, glassy waters create the perfect mirror for ghostly tall ships and vibrant crimson rosellas in others.
Archibald entry cops a spray
The New Paintings exhibition was supposed to take place earlier this year but had to be pushed back a few months when Ryan underwent foot surgery.
The operation kept him off his feet for seven weeks, a slow, painful recovery that cut short his preparation time for the 2024 Archibald Prize.
"When it came close to the final day (to enter), I found a painting I had painted of myself in 2006 or something," he said.
"It was called 'Self Portrait After A Fight' - it was a bit of a joke.
"So I took it and then I got some spray cans and just sprayed areas of it so that it meant it was completed in the last year, which is kind of the criteria.
"It wasn't really good and I entered it and it didn't get in and I sort of didn't expect it to, but that's okay.
"I was actually very excited for Laura Jones who won because she's a friend of mine and I think she captured Tim Winton's face beautifully in that painting."
A prolific new artist emerges
Ryan says In the time he took to recover from his operation, King's painting ability had come along in "leaps and bounds".
"David's done some really stunning paintings of Port Kembla industrial sites, which I think are fascinating," Ryan said.
"So I'm really happy to share with him."
Dublin-born King's paintings will deck out the bottom level of Clifton School of Arts.
The Bulli resident turned to painting two years ago after taking his final opera bow.
As a former interior design student and the son of a sculptor, King was always involved in the visual arts - it just had to take a back seat while he pursued a career in singing.
It was only after he went on tour with the opera and found himself with plenty of time to kill that he was able to pull out a sketch pad and start drawing again.
After retiring from performing, King threw himself into oil painting, taking a short course at the National Art School and learning what he could from Ryan.
With a love of industrial landscapes, in particular abandoned factories, King has made Port Kembla steelworks and the nearby harbour a focus of his work, adding strong colours to the rusty hues in a bid to make the scenes more contemporary.
King said he's been surprised by the similarities between painting and performing.
"I don't find it that different from singing," he said.
"To be honest, I see it as sort of an extension of that."
"You've got myriad varieties of colour in the voice when you're performing and this is the same in oil painting - you've got an infinite choice of palette."
The opening night of New Paintings will take place at the Clifton School of Arts on Friday, June 28, at 6pm and run all weekend, then again from Friday, July 5 until Sunday, July 7.