Prolific artist ready Rotary Easter show

ROB Penno has long had an affiliation with the Rotary Bendigo Easter Art Show with this year’s submission being over the tenth time he’ll have entered the event.

After first picking up a paintbrush in 1987 Penno has created thousands of pieces of art, with up to 1500 stored at his home across his house, shed and storage containers.

Penno said it was a rough patch after 20 years of teaching maths and physics that led to him taking up art.

“I broke down from teaching,” he said. “I had always had an interest in art, and I had always been able to draw and paint, but I really only got into it about 1987 after I finished up with teaching.”

It has been a passion of Penno’s ever since with the artist producing a prolific number of pieces in several different styles.

“My style chops and changes,” he said. “I have got triangulisms, I have watercolours, which I will display at the art show.

“I also have abstract pieces and I do landscapes. Though they aren’t entirely what you would call traditional.”

Finding art in 1987 never having dabbled in it previously was exactly what Penno needed at the time he said.

“I was more into sports, tennis, squash, and running,” he said. “Once I fell out of work, art was therapeutic for me, and I just went on with it.

“Watercolours are my favourite to do, they are nice and free, and I like freedom in all senses of the word.”

Penno has entered the Rotary Bendigo Art Show off and on since 1987 and he said it’s an opportunity he has a lot of respect for.

“It’s a great show, it’s highly organised and takes a lot of people to make it work,” he said. “The Rotary have my adoration for sure.”

You can find Penno’s artwork at this year’s Easter Art Show run by the Rotary Club of Bendigo at Town Hall from Friday, 7 to Monday, 10 April.