Everleigh Locomotive Works in Redfern

Elna and I spent some time exploring the old Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops at South Eveleigh, one of Sydney’s great surviving industrial spaces. Once part of the enormous Eveleigh Railway Workshops, where locomotives were built, maintained and repaired from the late 19th century, the precinct still retains its wonderful old brick buildings, huge machinery, railway infrastructure and raw industrial character. 

It was an amazing place to spend a few hours creatively. We started at The Grounds Coffee Factory. Elna then settled down to paint while I wandered off with my camera, photographing the old buildings, machinery, textures and details. I loved the combination of industrial history and modern life—the sense that so much of the original character has been preserved rather than polished away. It’s exactly the sort of place I love photographing: atmospheric, full of history and with interesting compositions everywhere you look.

Elna's beautiful art

Cape Tourville Lighthouse (Tasmania)

I found these old photos of the Cape Tourville Lighthouse in Freycinet that I took in Tasmania in n 2015. What a stunning setting for a lighthouse.

Cape Tourville Lighthouse is an active lighthouse. First exhibited on 17 November 1971, it replaced the Cape Forestier Lighthouse on the inaccessible Lemon Rock. The round concrete tower is 11 metres high, with the light positioned 126 metres above sea level and a nominal range of 18 nautical miles. It was designed as an automatic lighthouse, so it was never staffed by resident keepers, and it is now operated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Lighthouses of Australia

White Rabbit Gallery

Yesterday Xenia and I visited the White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale, and I absolutely loved it. Founded in 2009 by philanthropist and art collector Judith Neilson, the gallery grew from her fascination with contemporary Chinese art and houses one of the world’s most significant collections of Chinese art made in the 21st century. The works are bold, strange, playful and often provocative, ranging across painting, sculpture, photography, video and huge installations. I particularly loved the sheer variety and the way so many pieces combined beauty and imagination. It’s one of those galleries where you genuinely have no idea what you’ll encounter in the next room — a wonderful discovery right in the heart of Sydney.

 

This artwork was created with the help of 20 000 silkworms!