Glen Preece 2023

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An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Australian artist Glen Preece.

Glen Preece has always created art that reflects his emotional response to moments and memories from his life. He began creating art from a very young age, and has exhibited in various exhibitions and galleries world-wide.

Ever since I was ten years old I have held either a pencil or paint brush in my hand knowing that I wanted to be an artist. Ignoring both my mother's pleas not to rely on being an artist and those teachers and fellow students who followed a different path to representational art, I took the advice of artist friend William (Bill) T Cooper (1934-2015), the brilliant Australian bird-painter.

Bill sent me to John Brackenreg (1905-1986) OBE FRSA, artist and gallery director of Artarmon Galleries to show him my work. On seeing the small oil painting titled Winter Morning. (Mrs Roberts) John bought it and told me to go back home and paint for an exhibition in 1982. The exhibition was a sell-out, which set the stage for twenty more solo exhibition at Artarmon Galleries up to 2018.

In between these exhibitions, I was excited to go to Galerie Elyette Peyre in Paris for an exhibition arranged by John's daughter, Julie. This was made possible by the kind introduction of ex-patriot Australian artist Fred Jessup (1920-2007) living in France since 1949. The 1994 exhibition with Elyette was a very successful exhibition in her left bank gallery opposite the Louvre and I was astonished to sell the Nimmitabel Pub painting to a Parisian local. This experience led me to finding a Gallery in London and since 2002 I have exhibited at both prestigious London galleries: Collins & Hastie and Panter & Hall, St James.

My paintings and drawings have always been my response to what I am looking at. Not necessarily true that a painting comes to me at the time but I keep that initial vision in my memory and it is like an encyclopaedia of images in time and place. The actual subject or memory of an event dictates the way I paint and recently I have found I am applying paint in a looser manner than when I started exhibiting in 1978. It is always an emotional response and whether a work is fast and furious or quiet and reflective it is a pleasure to me when I lay down my 'brush'.

Glen Preece

Image: Glen Preece, Night, 2022, oil on board

Art Space on The Concourse, 409 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, 2067, View Map