What do you do?
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I draw buildings, street furniture and urban scenes of Canberra, Newcastle and sometimes Sydney.
I sell the drawings as limited edition prints and also make a range of cards, tea towels and magnets.
What sort of background do you have?
I’m an English designer specialising in graphics and textiles for the fashion industry. I used to do this in London, then I moved to Newcastle 12 years ago.
Since then I have mainly designed prints for Fred Bare in Sydney.
I started drawing on the streets of Newcastle in 2009, as an excuse to get off the computer and out of my studio.
Pretty soon I became obsessed with making new drawings and I wanted to do something with them, so I collected them in zines.
This expanded to tea towels, cards and prints, and I sold them locally under the brand Newcastle Productions.
What makes your pieces unique?
I always try to look at a city from an outsider’s point of view and draw things that wouldn’t normally be drawn.
Locals don’t always take notice of the environment they live in, so my intention is to point out the details that I think are worth engaging with.
I see my audience as locals rather than tourists.
I draw with a pen, preferably on site. In my drawings I remove the clutter, including people, and focus on the structure I want to represent.
I try to find humour where I can and I always aim to make even the most minor subject feel iconic.
Why did you start doing scenes of Canberra?
I was accepted as artist-in-residence at the wonderful Megalo Print Studio for six weeks in 2012.
This gave me the time to draw Canberra and make a body of work that I could sell on a larger scale in Canberra galleries, museums and shops.
What is it about Canberra that inspires you?
I love how areas of Canberra have the feeling of stepping back in time; the history of the place is so well preserved.
From my first visit I had a weird sense of nostalgia even though I grew up in a very different environment.
I get this feeling both from the suburban streets and the fantastic retro sci-fi architecture like the National Carillon and the Shine Dome.
I’m also a fan of the iconic concrete bus shelters that give the Canberra streets so much character – they’re being replaced by bland generic glass structures which is a huge shame.
Some should definitely be kept and heritage listed in a similar way to the red phone boxes in London.
I was also inspired to explore Canberra because of the negativity many Australians have towards the city; it reminded me of the standard reaction to Newcastle I heard when I first moved here.
These reactions seemed very superficial so I wanted to dig a bit deeper and appreciate Canberra for what it is and point out its uniqueness.
How do you decide what locations to draw?
Firstly, I want to draw the obvious landmarks, but with a new approach or angle. A perfect example is the Parliament House building from Canberra Avenue with the “wrong way go back” sign in the foreground; another is the view of the High Court of Australia from a kayak on the lake.
Next I look for subjects that hopefully will resonate with locals, like the (now deceased) Starlight sign and the Olympic Pool dive tower.
Lastly I draw obscure details like signage, post boxes and bus shelters, things that are never really treated as worthy subjects for artworks, but are worth recording and say as much about a city as any of the larger subjects.
Do you have a favourite place in Canberra?
All around Lake Burley Griffin, there aren’t many inland cities that have that sense of space.
Trevor Dickinson’s work can be purchased at:
Shop Handmade, City Walk
Paperchain Bookstore, Manuka
The Hive Gallery, Lonsdale Street
Civic Proframe, Akuna Street
The National Portrait Gallery
The National Library of Australia
The National Museum of Australia