Walkthrough Kevin's studio
Paul McGillick: I'm Paul McGillick. It's September the 23rd, 2020, and I'm at the home of the painter Kevin Connor. Uh, Kevin is an artist of almost, uh, mythical dimension and, um, I might suggest his work also has a mythic dimension.
Paul McGillick: So, Kevin, um, practical start at the beginning. Uh, you were born in 1932. Can you just give me a little bit of the background, your, your family history and where you were born and so on?
Kevin Connor: Well, yes, and I, I was born in Fairfield in Sydney. My father was a railway man. And, um, um, he ... it was during the depression, naturally. And, um, after a couple of years, he was moved to the country, to a small town near Cootamundra, and, uh, he, called Wallendbeen. And, uh, he was the stationmaster there.
Kevin Connor: He was moved up and took the rank of assistant stationmaster, and we were there for five years. And that's when I began to paint because there was only one house, the railway house. And opposite the railway line there was a house attached to an orchard.
Kevin Connor: And my father did a bit of weekend painting. And the lady, the wife of the orchardeer was also a painter. So, their children painted. I painted. And that's when I decided this would be a much easier way to make a living than being a railway man.
Kevin Connor: So, what was ... after five years in 1939, we moved back to Sydney. And, uh, uh, my mother was very unhappy in that part of the country although they both were country people. Uh, when coming back to city, my father took a job as a relief station master. So, he went to many different stations.
Kevin Connor: At one, uh, time, he, not long after coming back to Sydney, he was station master at Wynyard which was pretty hard for a country boy, uh, to take on such a big station. But the, the railways were much better thing than they are now Sydney had a superb transportation system, trams, buses, electric trains as we called them. And, uh, uh, my father never went to work without his uniform ironed, etc. Uh...
Paul McGillick: You said that the, your father, as you said is, uh, was a weekend painter, an amateur painter. So, was this important to you? Do you think this helped shape your idea of what you wanted to do?
Kevin Connor: Oh, it did. But, uh, I had my brother who was a, a little bit older than me. We both, back at Wallendbeen, uh, we didn't have electricity. And, uh, so one of my great memories is sitting around the kitchen table with the old Millard lamp, and my brother, Barry, and myself, making things with plasticine, and my mother reading books came from the railway library, we're in Sydney every two weeks. And my father, uh, doing whatever he felt like. But he was always around the Millard lamp. And, uh, that was a lovely memory.
Paul McGillick: Um, well, you left school at 15. And you started to work in commercial art. Um, first of all, what were you doing? What did this entail, this commercial art that you were doing? And what sort of influences start to have on you as a, as an artist?
Kevin Connor: Well, the commercial art taught me how to wash bru-, brush. Um, but it, it was after the war at, uh, '47. And, uh, I didn't like school at all. And I didn't start school really until I came back to Sydney. So, I'd like to say I sort of missed it a bit, the, the schooling.
Kevin Connor: But I, my mother helped me get a job as a trainee commercial artist at Service studios at Young Street. And they paid me 30 shillings a week, which is three dollars and paid my tech fees at night, to go up to, uh, East Sydney Tech, uh, to learn painting.
Kevin Connor: And, uh, I, uh, I, I actually didn't much care for East Sydney Tech at that stage. And, um, I preferred to go down to a sketch club at the Haymarket run, run by an old painter, Joe Holloway, which a lot of artists went to. The tech was crowded with returned soldiers, on their free education they got after the war. So the average age was about 26, 30. And I am 15-year-old kid, so it didn't.
Paul McGillick: Was it, um...? It wasn't unusual. A lot, a lot of artists did have a career path which took them through commercial art and initiallly...someone like Guy Warren, for example, he's a good example. Um, and typically, uh, you did sort of art classes in the evening after, after work. Can you just tell me a little bit about what sort of classes you were taking. And what, what effect did that had on your work? What influence did it have on your development?
Kevin Connor: Well, at East Sydney Tech in '48, I attended it spasmodically. I was taught ... one of the things I was required to take was manuscript lettering, a very old but very good letterer, Eric Roberts. And I think he taught me more about painting of composition, of, of, of placing of letters than anybody else more or less. The lecturers seemed to be tired, they ask me to draw plaster cast things and I, I prefer just to go down and mix with some painters at Joe Holloway's.
Paul McGillick: Did, did you do, uh, live classes?
Kevin Connor: At Joe Holloway's. Not at the tech. And I have to say I went to the tech because I did, but I didn't go after '48. Uh, I suppose I should say recently they made me a fellow of the National Art School. And, uh, I couldn't resist saying in my speech, that it only took me 69 years to graduate from this place. But, uh, uh, but I really didn't like art school. And yet I wished I could have gone during the day, but financially that was not a possibility.
Paul McGillick: You, you actually moved on quite quickly and became a, a commercial illustrator.
Kevin Connor: Well, my...at Service studio's my main activity was delivering lantern slides, glass lantern slides and developing things at, in the photographer's studio, catching trams, avoiding to pay fare with heavy parcels. And, uh, that painting behind you there is called "Heavy Slides." And I painted that in '83, a memory of carrying these heavy glass slides all over Sydney.
Kevin Connor: But I did learn to wash brushes and a few things. And then after that, I went to another commercial art studio for about eight months.
Paul McGillick: Uh, but as a commercial illustrator, that's require certain skills. How did you develop these illustrational skills?
Kevin Connor: Well, I could actually draw. I could draw and, uh, uh...But one big problem that was coming from a fairly art-ignorant family, I couldn't quite separate commercial art from fine art. And a very important thing happened to me that the establishing the difference between commercial art and fine art. Now it's all come back together again, but...
Kevin Connor: But I decided very early that I didn't wanna be a commercial artist and, um, then I quit both jobs and did illustrations for local newspaper article until I could save enough money working at Arnott's biscuit factory as a clerk. And as soon as I turned 21, I was on a ship to Europe. I couldn't go before that because my parents wouldn't sign the necessary documents.
Paul McGillick: So, if I've, if I've heard you correctly, uh, you recognized quite early on that commercial art could have, uh, a bad influence...on your other work. So, you made a clear decision to separate ...the two. Uh, do you think it -- though, looking back -- was there any ongoing influence, perhaps that lingered or stayed with you as a fine artist?
Kevin Connor: I think what it was [inaudible] to those days was going to the Macquarie Galleries and looking at shows, reading reviews, and finding when I went to the show the image the reviewer wrote about the work was much better than the actual work. But, um, I, I knew a few artists like Roy Fluke and, and, um, Tom Gleghorn. I do-, I don't think he was around then, but a few others s-, soldier artists.
Paul McGillick: Yes, I wanted to ask you what, how, how involved were you with the art world? And how many other artists did you know...at Sydney at the time?
Kevin Connor: I picked up my peer group because of not going to East Sydney Tech. And, um, to pick up that sort of relationship, you really had to be a full-time student.
Paul McGillick: Yeah. All right. So, um, well, like everybody else, you wanted to get away...overseas and, uh, which in those days meant going to England. Uh, and I seem to recall you went by Grenoble or somewhere and then overland, uh, to London. So what was your motivation? What...? Because it's always interesting to ask people why they wanted to do it. Why, why was it so important to get away?
Kevin Connor: Well, instinctively I sort of knew that you had to go to a centre where it was happening. I don't mean to, to see the paintings you couldn't see here to see. So when I set off, I actually got a job at the biscuit factory, saved my fare. So soon as I was 21, I took, uh, the motor vessel Sydney to Genoa and, uh, traveled across Europe to London where I worked at many, many different jobs. And I think the highest salary I ever got was four pounds a week. So I stayed there for a couple of years.
Kevin Connor: I did quite a bit of painting there, had, uh, art shows and so forth. But after a couple of years, that became impossible. I couldn't save. I was a heavy smoker. I...Well, um, I had to pay 30 shillings for a room. It didn't leave much...had just going no where. So I didn't want to return to Australia. The only option I had was I immigrated from England to Canada, and went via the United States
Paul McGillick: So what about because you're away for quite a while between 1950 to 1957. Did we, did you travel at all on what we used to call the Continent? Did you actually go to Europe as you said?
Kevin Connor: Uh, I'd never got back to the continent because I simply couldn't afford it...I mean.
Paul McGillick: So, um, anyway, just going back to this period though in, in London, uh, in what ways did this shape you and what art were you looking at while you were in London?
Kevin Connor: Well, I did get across to Paris once. And, uh, I saw quite a bit there but the artists that I saw, like Stanley Spencer and various other artists. I'm just trying to think. I, uh, have a mental block, but I remember one afternoon going to see an exhibition of Picasso's, artists and models in a little gallery.
Kevin Connor: And then going to the movies and watching, uh, Wake in Fright, uh, no, not Wake in Fright. Anyway, it's a very good movie, and smoking a whole packet of cigarettes, which was a bit of a disaster because that was...My cigarettes for the week and, uh, but and I went to the Tate, and then I went to the British Museum.
Kevin Connor: I loved Titian's late work, um, uh, uh, and, uh I don't think I, uh, uh mixed, yes, with a, an old artist...Oh, he was young then, Geoff Wilson, an Adelaide painter. Uh, but there are many Australian artists there that I didn't mix in that scene at all, uh...
Paul McGillick: But you would, you would have, for example gone to the National Gallery in London. I mean... And if, if you went to the National Gallery, what, what pictures, for example, would you seek out? Which ones would you go and look at?
Kevin Connor: Well, it's pretty hard because I've been to England so many times and I go see my favorite pictures. So I, I can't actually pick what ones that I saw then, um, as against what I saw later. But, uh, and I've always been slightly dyslexic. So I've looked at so many pictures and so many people...but I have trouble with their names.
Kevin Connor: But, um, well, I remember being overwhelmed by Constable and, and Turner and, uh, um, and the current English breakfast painters. And, um, uh, but it was later that I...
Paul McGillick: See for, I'm looking at one of your pictures now. I mean, if, if somebody said to me, "What, which artist did Kevin Connor look at, at the National Gallery?" I'd probably say Titian because of the, you know, your sort of gestural approach, yeah?
Kevin Connor: Well, Titian was, uh, very much. It was particularly his large painting of, um, what's its name, "Fight With the Angels", a very late work and, uh, uh, uh, but...
Paul McGillick: Well, yo-, you've returned to Australia...
Kevin Connor: Ah, uh, what I, what I wanted to say was, what I loved doing most in London was drawing. And that's when I started doing sketchbook drawings. And I just loved London as a place. Truly, it was, uh, still meat rationing, still poverty. Uh, but I could've lived in London for the rest of my life. Uh, I made no attempts at trying to get a gallery or anything like that.
Kevin Connor: And, uh, when do you have to work like one job was a night watchman. I got, uh, worked sixteen hour shifts every second night and 24-hour shift on the weekend. You don't have much time when you're young, and you're partying and, uh, so forth but...at work.
Paul McGillick: ...I'll like to come back to this in a moment we're going to talk about drawing a bit more...because, uh, that's partly why I mentioned Titian ,'cause in a sense drawing with paint almost. But, just get, get back briefly to the biographical thing. Um, I understand you came back in '57 because your parents were ill. Is that what prompted the return?
Kevin Connor: What prompted the return was I was working, and I got a job in Vancouver. Uh, the first job there was sign writing. It only took them three days, it was with the Hudson Bay Company, to realise that I wasn't a very good signwriter.
Kevin Connor: But, then I got a job in arial surveying, slopping prints through the dark room. Eventually, I, they made me a draftsman, and I picked that up pretty quickly. And, uh, and, and mag-, magnetics, real magnetic survey, and, uh, I worked for Fairchild, but...
Kevin Connor: And I was pretty content there. I was painting and earning quite good money and I got a telegram that my mother was dying and, uh, to return to Australia. Um, but she wasn't dying, but my father had a heart attack on the way back.
Kevin Connor: And, uh, they convinced me along with the fact that Fairchild had just opened an office in Sydney and offered me a job at, uh, as, uh, a mangna...arial magnatometer expert, which I wasn't. But fortunately, they went out of business within a year, before I had to show them my expertise.
Kevin Connor: Then I went to Adastra Airways, uh, working as a draftsman and occasionally going up to Bankstown and winding down the wheels of old bi-plane called a Dragon and, uh, painting.
Kevin Connor: And, uh, I di-, I didn't live with my family for long, I went, had a bedsit in Neutral Bay where I was painting a big, awful painting called "Dogma". And, uh, uh, say that probably answers that question.
Paul McGillick: You, your career though does seem to sort of start to take off after you come back. So, could you fill me in on the years up to, say, the mid-'60s and maybe talk a little bit about the Haymarket series. Which seems to be kinda...like a milestone, if you like...in your career.
Kevin Connor: Well, sorry...the, the thing that happened was, uh, I never...I just drew, I painted. Uh, most of my paintings I did in London, I left in California with a friend I had there. And, uh, that I had never wanted particularly to exhibit, I just did it.
Kevin Connor: And then I met a young lady called Margaret and we decided to get married after a couple of weeks. And, uh, she said that, you know, if I, I wanted to be a, an artist I really had to think more about how do you make a living.
Kevin Connor: So, I went over to the ABC and spoke to Bill Kennard, he was in charge of the graphic department. I got a job and, uh, it was in a different world, wasn't it? And, uh, he...after a while I started to illustrate the news which was, I could do in gouache, a very fast drawing of whatever the newsroom wanted, and in all black and white television.
Kevin Connor: It looked quite good. So if there was as a horse that fell over in a race I would quickly do this, tones, and then they'd slash across it, 'Accident at the Races'. And, uh, the journalists were really wonderful people, with John Crew and a few others like Ken Cook who wrote Wake in Fright. And, uh, I kept on doing that for about two years and then I won the grand prize.
Kevin Connor: I had two exhibitions with the Australian Gallery and the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney, and they paid very well. And, uh, when I won the grand prize, uh, of 700 pounds, which was enough to live on for, uh, eight months, we decided I'd paint full time and I did that for the next 13 years. Um...
Paul McGillick: To...So, no, uh, so, when you're talking about working at the ABC, that, uh, prompted, prompted me to think about how you work ge-, generally, because it seems to me you must have learned how to work very fast. Cause your work is very much about observing what's happening...in front of you in, in an urban context. So, is, is that correct? Do you think that's the kind of skill you developed then?
Kevin Connor: Well, um, probably not. But what I eventually wound up doing, I'd go in...after lunch for the seven o'clock news and stay there 'til I think it was the 10 o'clock news. So, I had the morning to paint in.
Kevin Connor: And...I had, I had an ability to visualise something and do it quickly and the journalists particularly liked that because if something came in in two minutes before the news, I could give them something. And that, in a way, upset my actual boss who was, used to spend a whole afternoon with several other graphic designers doing little pull-ins, and to pull-outs electric things for the news.
Kevin Connor: And, and, uh, uh, and he, he didn't like me doing this, but the journalists overruled him. And so I stayed on there. But when I won this large prize, which was about to eight month's living, that was enough to get me to leave because the situation was awkward. But I really quite liked old Bill Kennard. And, uh, I remember when he designed the ABC symbol. And he called me over, and he said, uh, "Uh, what do you think is that?" And I said, "Oh, it's quite nice." He said, "It's just, uh, two radio waves. It's pretty corny."
Kevin Connor: I said, "I think it's all right." And, of course, he's famous for designing that wonderful symbol. But, uh, John Coburn, I lived, worked there before me, I think I got his job. And Bill Rose worked at the same department. And they didn't like people who had been to the tech. So, I was, you know...
Paul McGillick: Those were the days when the ABC and advertising agencies gave work to artists.
Kevin Connor: Well, when I first married Margaret was still working and people used to say, "When are you going to support your wife," you know, those days. So a vacancy came for graphics designer in Queensland. And nobody out of head office could employ anybody who earned over a thousand pounds a year. So, I dropped a going update to employ a graphics designer.
Kevin Connor: And being the ABC, that took me three months. Margaret came up for the first six weeks, but she had to come back because the house was being finished. But the ABC was, was good fun in a way. It, uh, uh...
Paul McGillick: Oh, don't, don't worry. I, I've, I've got a lot of work from them as well.
Kevin Connor: Yes. Yes.
Paul McGillick: Look I want to come back to drawing in, in a minute. But, um, from 1965 to 1968, you were abroad, o-, overseas. So, can you talk to me a little bit about where you went and what the reason was for the, for the jour-, the trip?
Kevin Connor: Well, '65, that's right. Uh, that's when we sold our house. And, uh, uh, uh, Macquarie Galleries had arranged -- I'm just trying to get this right -- a big show at the Commonwealth Institute London. And, uh, uh, and I wanted to go and look at, of course, some paintings.
Kevin Connor: And, and we went to London for a couple of months. And then we went via France down to Spain. And we stayed the winter in Spain in a little fishing village where I did a lot of the paintings for the show in London.
Kevin Connor: And, uh, it was west of Malaga. And it was nine houses in the village. And, uh, uh, then after that, we toured Europe, we had a Mini Minor. And, uh, we went to the homeland of the Renaissance in Italy and, uh, saw Giotto and all the painters, the Romanesque painters of Barcelona.
Kevin Connor: We did the, we did the galleries. And we did that with our little boy who was then four years old, Paul, [inaudible]. And, uh, went back to London. But one time in Malaga, I went into Malaga to get the mail, came back to our house which was on the beach because it was a fishing village, opened the letter. And it was an offer of a Harkness Fellowship in America for two years.
Kevin Connor: So, that included everything. And, uh, so we decided then to go through Italy and, uh, see what we could, went back to London. Then I had to come back because my father was really dying then, for two months. And we went to New York of America for the next two academic years. That's a bit involved, just, uh...
Paul McGillick: So, you, I'm just, I mean, it's a pretty corny question, but I mean, I have to ask it, I suppose. What, what impact did this have on your work, this period of time you spent in New York and in Spain?
Kevin Connor: Well, very much. I, I, I'm just trying to replay it. I, I thought of New York, and I did a series of work that related the fishing village, particularly the bigger village which is up at the hills, Vale of the Malaga.
Kevin Connor: But the previous year had a road put up it with 40,000 people living there, to New York. And I, I thought of New York as the peasant's village. I meant, I don't mean that as an insult, but it just seemed to me the whole world came from, pretty well the peasants of Europe who built this white village called Manhattan.
Kevin Connor: That took me the two years to relate in the local painting the hard edge and the...which I thought was very much related to being in New York. Um, my type of painting was not popular in America at that stage. Um, people like Hopper were quite downgraded, and then the whole abstract expressionist thing, and turned into the various isms.
Kevin Connor: But we liked New York. We...And then part of the fellowship was they gave you a car, and you have to spend three months traveling around America. So, we saw all the great paintings of Europe, Ce-, Central America.
Kevin Connor: And, um, how I got that was, Syd Nolan had been a Harkness Fellow. And he'd seen my work on a trip to Australia and he recommended me. And, uh, so, and, uh, so after that, we came back to Australia and, uh...
Paul McGillick: Well, a-, again, I wanna come back to New York in a moment for a, a reason which will become apparent.
Paul McGillick: But, but right now though, I just can...go back to dr-, uh, drawing because, um, in your work, uh, what we might call graphic work or drawing is, uh, uh, as important as painting. And in many respects, your painting could be described as a drawing with, with paint. So, can you just tell me a little bit about the importance, say, of works on paper for you? How important is that medium for you?
Kevin Connor: Oh, I think drawing has been the main thing of my life. I love drawing. At the, uh, I, in the library there, I'll show you these...over 100 sketchbooks at, uh...I've had exhibitions at the art gallery at, um, at Orange recently where I've shown over 600 drawings. Um, a-, you know, I've done thousands of drawings.
Kevin Connor: Uh, painting seems to me a bit different. At one stage, my drawings developed into a three-dimensional thing. And I started doing a bit of sculpture and, uh, uh...But drawing is the fun...the, the very basis of seeing. And, uh, it's, well, it's just, that's what I do.
Paul McGillick: Drawing, um, for you seems to have sort of two aspects of it. On the one hand, uh, for you, drawing is, uh, autonomous, self-contained, uh, discipline or activity. On the other hand, also, a drawing though is, uh, serves a purpose of being preparations or preparatory work for painting. Is that correct? Has it both those two aspects?
Kevin Connor: Yes. Yes, I think that's probably true. I, I, uh...well, as, as early as I can remember, I've been drawings. And, uh, I once said, uh, "To give up painting and just draw for the rest of my life." And, at most mornings, I get out to Villa Parisi. And I sit there and draw people. And, uh, that's what I'm doing a lot more of right now at, uh...
Paul McGillick: Um, I think I've got a little note here. I think it was Edmund Capon in some catalog said, called you an urban expressionist painter. I'm just wondering does that description make any sense to you, or should it be an urban realist painter?
Kevin Connor: Look, labels are labels.I don't know what I am. But I do work in the city. I'm not a...I've done landscapes, but I, I'm not a, I get lonely. I like to say I went out to Liverpool once but I didn't like the look of the country.
Paul McGillick: Well, the ci-, uh, let's talk about the city. So, what is the city for you? Is it a location? Is it a subject? Is it a kind of symbol? What is it? 'Cau-, 'cause you are very about the city in your painting at least.
Kevin Connor: Uh, it's a great big growing organism that shifts and shoves and pushes. But Sydney in my lifetime has changed from being, uh, the biggest seaport in the Southern Hemisphere, known as Port Jackson, to becoming nothing more than a business center.
Kevin Connor: It's no longer a seaport, and that's made an enormous difference to my thinking of the city. The smoke has gone. And the factories have gone. It's now just that, that city there is...it doesn't make anything anymore. It just makes money. It used to be every little alleyway had umbrella, second-hand book shops, bookbinders, and, uh, th-, that's the city that I loved so much.
Paul McGillick: Yeah. Um, this is, uh...Just bear with me for a moment... Yeah, I'm just thinking. You, you traveled a lot in your life, yeah. You traveled a lot. In fact, you might say you're a relentless traveler, really. So, so, in my mind, I've got this picture of this artist, or you, traveling the world with a sketchbook in his hand. Uh, I mean, is that right? Is that what you do? You got, have a sketchbook and a pencil?
Kevin Connor: Yes, yes, yes. I, uh, the Art Gallery published a little book. Have you seen that, I'll show it to you later of, uh, and it's, uh, I think it's called "Sketchbook In London, Paris and Sydney." Uh, but, that's what I liked doing.
Kevin Connor: But, while I traveled so much particularly to Paris is, uh, the Cité international des Arts has always been prepared to give me a studio. And I'd go to Paris with Margaret for two months every year. And, all one did was live in Paris for two months and I'd, uh, I did a lot of painting and a lot of drawing over those years.
Kevin Connor: We've given up travel now because of my age, but we, later years we rented a flat. And, uh, I loved being in Paris. I've never been able to handle languages gre-, very well so I could...If I lived in Paris say for two years, I would speak French. But I wouldn't be able to speak English. That's a sort of mind.
Kevin Connor: Uh, so, when we get there I, I'd begin to pick it up, and, but what I liked is not being able to converse and just see everything visually...so I could go drawing. Uh, if there's a sign saying, "You're not permitted to draw here," I can't read it so that's good. But I, but I liked just walking about drawing.
Paul McGillick: Can I, um, in another catalog, Hendrik Kolenberg, uh, characterised your work as being about monumentality, painterly vigor, and bold contrast of color. Is that a good description of your work?
Kevin Connor: Um, it's as good as any. It's pretty good. I mean, I don't know whether my work is like that, but that's a pretty nice compliment. Although I don't, I can't, I can't, uh, uh, I can't...Well, you know, that's what Hendrik saw, which is good.
Paul McGillick: Well, I've got another quote here from Hendrik Kolenberg as well, which I'll ask you to respond to, in, in the same essay. He talks about reconstructed memory as a recurrent feature of your work. So, I'm wondering whether the imagery in your work, how much of that is direct observation? And how much of it is a kind of imaginative expansion of what, on what you've seen?
Kevin Connor: Well, I think that's a good description because that painting there, again, is a, a reconstructed at '83 of what I was doing in '48. Um, so, it becomes a picture that I drew Sydney as well as Paris. Uh, I don't go and draw, or I've drawn the [inaudible] Street with the Central Station many times, but I don't draw it to make a picture. It's a, I reconstruct the thing.
Kevin Connor: But, but words are funny things, aren't they, they could be interpreted in so many different ways. Uh, when this interview is finished, I'll remember all the artists that have influenced me. But just talking like this, it's hard to, to name.
Kevin Connor: But, I think, uh, I've been a loner all my life as far as the art world. And only when I had to teach did I get to know art as a, a, art. That's probably because at full-time art school, artists had to pick up a peer group that's their, "Friends for life." And I didn't have that, so, I, uh, didn't know...that many artists. And, uh, I, well, I don't know whether that answers the question.
Paul McGillick: Well, just talking about the imagery in your work, um, one thing that strikes me, uh, about, about it is that, especially the city images, uh, that everything seems to be sort of compressed and flattened on the, the surface of the picture. And for a lot of those pictures perspective or depth doesn't seem to play, uh, much of a role, except in some of those pictures you were referring to New York, which are quite different. They're much more kind of [inaudible] and, and dynamic.
Paul McGillick: So, I mean, I'm not sure what my question is, but I'm just asking you perhaps to respond to that idea, that sort of flatness is...I don't like the word flatness, but that sort of compression of what you're seeing gets compressed into a single plane on the picture. But I'm, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you see it differently.
Kevin Connor: Well, I do. I can understand what you see. But I don't try and make it that way. It, uh, uh, I often said to students...well, a good example was, we used to walk around, talk to the students. And I said to one student one morning, "Uh, look, just don't think. Just do it." And I said, "Thinking is the mortal enemy of painting. It's hit it. The painting will go with you." And she said, "Well, Alun Leach-Jones just, just came around and said to me, as long as I'm thinking, it'll be OK." And the only answer I could give her was, not being a teacher really, was, "That's your problem."
Kevin Connor: But, so, I, I'm a bit against structural things. And after 12 years of teaching and being paid, overpaid, um, the only answer I had to tell anybody was, how to paint, was the word, "Start". You know, you can't do anything unless you start, same as writing, you know. And, uh, uh, the American painter I remember, not painter, writer, Saroyan, uh, he said, "Just write," more or less. And if that doesn't work, get a job like working in a haberdashery store, something that you can live on. Uh, anyway...
Paul McGillick: Uh, finally, getting near the end of our little talk, uh, I'm interested in your work habits. Um, for example, do you have a fixed routine? Do you have a certain discipline, or you just work when you feel like working?
Kevin Connor: Yes, the latter. But, when I had the studio down at, uh, uh, Yurong Street in Darlinghurst, I went regularly to Bill & Tony's for coffee and drawing, and then to work. And eventually, about four years ago, I sold the studio and worked here.
Kevin Connor: So here, I work more erratically and very often, when I feel won't like to work and have a snooze instead, which I find very good at my age. And, uh, uh, and I still get out couple of paintings and drawings, mostly. And, uh, but erratically now, I paint, but, uh...
Paul McGillick: Um, so, just one final question I suppose it is. I mean, looking back over a very long career now, I'd like to quote you a very famous piece of verse by T.S. Eliot from the "Four Quartets" and, and I'd like to get you to respond to that and tell me whether you think that tells it something about the evolution of your work.
Paul McGillick: And the quote is this, "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time." Does that ring bells for you?
Kevin Connor: Very much, yes. It is trying to regain the freshness that a child sees the world, you know. And, uh, uh, and you can't paint anything until you get to that or a little bit of it. And, uh, I don't think, I think...yes it does. And Picasso said a very similar thing. I try, 'cause of his old age, to paint like a child and to see things like a child.
Kevin Connor: I think we've all experienced that wonderful thing of being, walking out on a sunny morning and you're five years old, and the world is wonderful. And, uh, I, uh, that's, at the end of Barry Pearce's book, he quotes me as saying when we used to come down to the city from the country when I was about five or six that I walked out one sunny morning and saw Sydney and felt that's what I wanted to paint for the rest of my life. And, uh, uh I, I think, yes that's, that's great. And, uh, I, I think that says it all.
Paul McGillick: All right. Chose the right quote then.
Kevin Connor: Yes.
Paul McGillick: All right. Than-, thanks, Kevin.
Kevin Connor: Thank you.
Interviewer: Paul McGillick
Camera, lighting & sound: Cameron Glendinning
Video editing: Dr. Bob Jansen
Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen