Landscapes - A Retrospective by Don Huckel

“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration”

                                                                                        Claude Monet

Places I have been

One late, hot afternoon I drove down Lake Albert Rd and as I descended toward the rail overpass I looked eastward above the treetops that skirt the Murrumbidgee. I glimpsed the distant summer hills that envelop Wagga Wagga and rise to the horizon, hanging like ink-stained hessian. I thought to myself that I must paint this scene one day that captivated my imagination. It is this type of encounter that has given rise to this exhibition. 

This is my first exhibition in 20 Years and all works displayed have been completed in that time frame based on places I have visited, sketched, and photographed. All images are oil on canvas but I have completed each work utilising a combination of techniques ranging from brush and knife application to scumbling.    This body of work is unified through the genres of landscape, and to a large extent, Impressionism.

Even though I have explored many genres and styles of art during my life, this exhibition reconnects with the artists and art movements that inspired me as a child; Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton, the Heidelberg School, and the French Impressionists. They all celebrated a sense of ‘Place’ and the play of light in their work. in rendering the beauty of the landscapes with which they interacted, all of these artists invariably valued and focused on the sacred relationship, and obligation, people have with self, others and the environment.

Don Huckel

…is a semi-retired secondary teacher and practising artist of some forty years who is able to more fully reconnect with his passion for painting. In past decades he has exhibited at The Henry Lawson Festival, Grenfell, Hume Cottage in Yass, and multiple times at Joyes Hall, CSU Wagga Wagga. Initially, a landscape artist in oils, Don has explored pastel, acrylic a mixed media as well as the genres of expressionism and abstraction. This is Don’s first exhibition at The Curious Rabbit and hopefully the first of others that focus on differing subjects and styles.

Don’s early influences are Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton, Monet, and Fred Williams. Paints primarily with an impressionistic approach. Is increasingly interested in expressionistic renditions of urban landscapes, focusing on the lines, angles, shapes, and patterns afforded by such environments.