The highs and lows of life as a surfer and an artist

LONG-time Ballarat local Steve Sedgwick fully appreciates the flow of life’s journey.

As a practicing yoga teacher, he immerses himself in the acceptance of the energy of the world around him and harnessing that in various ways.

For him, water – whether sea or inland – is an important part of that.

“The heart and the brain are composed of 73 percent water, the body overall 60 percent,” Sedgwick said.

“I would argue that some hearts and brains need constant immersion into water more than others. I am one of them.”

Many swimmers, surfers like Sedgwick, or just the coastal lovers that we are, find peace and solace by being near or within water, and would relate to this feeling.

For nearly 40 years as an artist, this essence is what Sedgwick captures and brings to his paintings – moody abstractions in oil of all water’s energy, its ebb and flow. The creation on canvas is the “dance and the magic” that occurs combining “observation, memory and experience with the instinct to mix pigment and mark make”.

With a major in painting, graduating in 1984 in Fine Arts, Sedgwick exhibited early in the iconic Roar Gallery in Fitzroy in 1986.

He was a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize in 2018.

He is presently in the middle of a purple patch – after a sell-out show in Ballarat, he is honoured to be exhibiting in a group exhibition at Lorne’s Qdos and in Bermagui over January.

New to the Hive Gallery at 41 Smithton Grove, Ocean Grove, Sedgwick’s solo exhibition Ebb and Flow will be on show from today (Friday, February 3) to February 26, with the opening on Sunday, February 5.

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