Albany artist Colin Montefiore has loved painting and drawing for as long as he can remember; from when he was a child until adulthood when he travelled and worked overseas.
Now settled in Albany where he has lived for more than 30 years, art still plays a major part in his life with local exhibitions and workshops. Life is busy for someone retired but, as Colin says, it’s important to have a big interest, a passion.
Lesmurdie born, Colin recalls being attracted to art as a child: “I started drawing on my bedroom walls when I was about three or four and kept drawing on them until I left home. I would paint over the old art and put new ones up.”
Colin was fortunate to receive early tuition from renowned WA artist Robert Juniper as a student at Guildford Grammar and wanted to go to art school as many aspiring artists did in the 1970s.
“But Dad wouldn’t let me, saying I had to have a career. So off I went and did interior design and architectural drafting at the then Leederville tech and that’s actually where I learned to draw properly.”
After that free-spirited Colin went travelling, spending a year in New Zealand and then onto Europe for four years, teaching canoeing in the south of France and in Britain.
“Then I returned home for my brother’s wedding I was meant to return to France. But I met this girl, Mary, married and had three daughters, took on a mortgage and had to take on a real job, running a canoe shop in Perth for nine years.”
The family later settled in Albany where Colin worked in real estate, turning to painting more seriously and has painted ever since. He is a life member of the Albany Art Group WA, attends workshops, teaches and paints most days in his home studio.
He has just finished an exhibition of his works at the Whaling Station café gallery, has an art trail in September at the Vancouver Arts Centre and is currently working on a big project, the King River 50-year celebration painting. People figure in many of his works because of his endless fascination but he also enjoys painting landscapes.
He has also illustrated a children’s book, He’s My Dad, by Leanne White.
“I’m lucky enough to have a daughter living in Portugal so we go there every few years and the other year we travelled around Australia for a few months in an off-road camper. I draw and my wife looks at wildflowers.
“We were visiting Cascais near Lisbon and there was a bar where I would sit and paint, the staff giving me a beer and displaying my works. Cascais is a bit like Fremantle with all these beach bars and I have exhibited there a few times.
“One day my wife went off to buy jewellery and I was seated opposite this building opposite which appeared really boring. Then I noticed the chimneys on the roof, about 20 in all, were each different so if I hadn’t observed them, I would not have come up with a painting.”
These days, Colin is equally busy painting mainly in acrylic, watercolour, pastel and ink and holding workshops, some of which focus on travel sketching.
“Some people believe they need to carry all these different colours but all you really need are the five basic colours.
“The hardest thing I find is getting other blokes to paint, which is a pity,” Colin said.
Colin currently has two local commissions waiting to be painted, life is busy.
What does art mean to him?
“I keep saying I’m giving it up. After one art exhibition we went sailing on the Whitsundays for two weeks for a break and I took a sketch book and drew every day,” he said.
