Ian Pascoe

During a scientific career as a mycologist, I did many drawings portraying the technical details of microfungi in pen and ink. In my artistic career I initially moved away from the technical world, painting landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes in pastel and watercolour. Increasingly, however, the pen has lured me back into drawing the natural world. The attraction of pen and ink is its immediacy – each mark is there to stay, so any unintended marks have to be worked into the composition – the inability to erase is both challenging and liberating.

Moving to Phillip Island has re-ignited my love of boats and drawn me into the wonderful world of waterbirds and honeyeaters and other plants and animals. The combination of pen and ink with watercolour provides a distinctive way of treating these subjects.

I am inspired to draw, as much as anything else, by the technical challenges of turning a complex array of visual inputs into a single well-expressed idea rendered mostly in black and white. I relish the permanency of ink, and the consequent absence of second chances. Make a mark and learn to live with it!

Above all, my paintings have to tell a story through a combination of composition, atmosphere, texture and movement.

I am a member and former councillor of the Australian Guild of Realist Artists (AGRA), a member of the Pastel Society of Victoria, Australia and a member of the Artists Society of Phillip Island. Joy Brentwood and I recently had a successful exhibition at Quadrant Gallery in Hawthorn (www.quadrantgallery.com.au).

A visit to the studio that my wife, Joy Brentwood, and I share at Rhyll, can be arranged by calling 0400305439, or you may prefer to visit my website or email me.

www.jandistudiorhyll.com