So what's your dad doing?

He's just moved into a studio next to his house on the North Shore. After a recent survey of his work at the Ipswich Regional Gallery, he's just continuing to paint.

Now that's out of the way...

Stephen is oscillating between urban and natural landscapes. It's been an interesting journey marked by several pivotal moments.

When he was in a plane circling over Seattle he flew through a convergence point. It consisted of a book he was reading, Memories, Dreams and Reflections (C.G. Jung), the visage of a mess of highways that looked like snakes and the realization of a personal mission. He realized that we are the "architects of the earth" and he decided to spend his life raising our awareness of the consequences.

These days we, "wallop a highway through a virgin forest in no time flat. We build pyramids on a daily basis."

His landscapes now vary between those devoid of human presence, those devoid of nature and combinations of the two. They also take into account David Suzuki's insight that conservation of our natural environment encompasses the maintenance of human rights.

As a teenager in France he was very impressed with the speed of the autobahn and at 14 his father - then working on the Opera House curtains - bought him a bike, not a push bike.

Speed was always an integral element of his urban paintings, roads executed with a smooth knife that race before your eyes. He does not owe much to Jeffery Smart as there is nothing static about his images. Overpasses sweep up through the picture plane and mask the sky.

COBURN FINE ART CONSERVATION

Conservation & Restoration of Paintings & Frames Traditional Through to Contemporary [email protected]

62 Albion St., Annandale 9516 5556

His art restoration business hums with industry. He employs 5 artists in various combinations of time commitments. Julie Whittlam has just spent 3 years studying art conservation. She has found that her new knowledge has transformed the way she paints and now that she's returning to painting, installation and print making, she has found her themes have broadened. Jo Meares is a mixed media artist interested in old and new processes and scale. He came to Coburn's Fine Art Conservation via Broken Hill, Melbourne, Queensland, overseas and Sydney about a year ago. Allason Davies is a print maker who calls her work techtonic. It is architectural and concerned with construction and abstraction and borders on the really humorous. All work with considered concentration and skill.

So Stephen, what are you specializing in?

Olsen murals. (It takes up a lot of space.)

Stephen exhibits at Sydney Art Gallery & he's getting married this weekend (18 March). The lucky woman is Elizabeth Michell who will become Elizabeth Michell Coburn. We wish Stephen all the best with this delightful turn of events.