I can’t offer you tea or a nice red wine on the Internet, so
please wander around the paintings.
I hope you enjoy them.

A person's journey through life deserves to be recorded. It deserves the infinite attention of a portrait.

They say the camera never lies. Perhaps, but a photo is like India - it shows how it is in this second in this place, then phut! Vanished ! It's never like that again.

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Robert Dickerson

Detail


I find that the profound concentration needed to observe the unknown details of a human being make me unconscious of what I am painting. Still, it will unfold layer after layer of magnificent facts. Nor do I know the full truth of what I've painted until years later if my sitter and I have become friends.

Sitting requires patience, however, there are phases of a portrait for which photos will suffice. If the sitter is a stranger, I find the planning of a portrait terrifying - a whole human being, unknown, in my hands! It's far better if we build some conversational ease between us first.

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"Odette of Ormiston"

Detail

Among the people who have sat for me you might recognise the following: Sam Fullbrook, Winner of the Archibald Portrait Prize and the Wynne Prize, the late Xavier Herbert, author of Poor Fella My Country & Capricornia, Betty Churcher, former Director of the Australian National Gallery and Robert Dickerson, genre artist.



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Tears

The Yacht Broker

If you would like to commission a portrait, I'll need to get to know you to a degree. If you live overseas or outside Sydney, we can do this by phone calls, videos, slides etc. Painting with the sitter present is my preferred way, but I also work a lot with slides taken from all angles.

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Kenneth Schimanski

James Shingles

Two of these portraits were reconstructed without my having seen the people: Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Leon Phipps.

The living mature face tells it's own story, quite clearly in most cases; but in it's absence I use words to find the essence of the character, researching libraries in the case of Australia's greatest aviator and even a little mathematics; I am proud of the trigonometry I used to lift the Southern Cross off the tarmac and level her out in the sky!

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Charles Kingsford Smith

Eugenia Grace

In the case of Leon, who gambled his life to get in the wheat crop and sadly lost, the words are those of his mother; pages of unconditional love which are transparently truthful and objective and full of all the little details only a passionate memory holds.

I wonder if the spirit of this strong-willed young man took a hand because the whole district that knew him swears it is his exact likeness. I was very relieved because, of the five indistinct snapshots available, not one looked anything like another.

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Leon Phipps - In Memoriam

Marie

PRICES (Australian dollars)

Full figure 4'x 3' ...$7,000

" " 4' 6" x 2' 4"... $6,500

Torso 2'11" x 2' 6".. $5,900

Bust 1' 5" x 1' 6"..$3,500

Head 16" x 12"...$2,500

Pastels 23cm x 30cm; ...$1,000

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Virgin of the Oranges

Dawn

Painting sizes are easily changed. Prices for groups depend on the size of the painting and the number of sitters.

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Mythmaker

Madelaine-Rose

With regards,
Kathleen Petersen

KP@KathleenPetersenPortraits.com

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Separation

Brigid by the sea (pastel)

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Tom and Madelaine-Rose

Clohey

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Bryce

Lily