Surf Coast artist Vaughan Prain’s latest exhibition of 23 paintings at Torquay’s Hoop Gallery belies his late start to the medium.<\/p>\n
At 75 the Anglesea painter only seriously picked up a brush 10 years ago when a colleague saw his drawings and suggested he should have a show, so he set up a studio in one of his kids old bedrooms and got to work.<\/p>\n
“I had 11 big paintings for that first show and sold six,” he said of the exhibition at the Phyllis Palmer Gallery in Bendigo.<\/p>\n
Largely concerning himself with figurative studies and painting with acrylics \u2013 “far less toxic than oil” \u2013 one of his more recent works earnt him wall space alongside some of the nation’s best.<\/p>\n
“My kids persuaded me to go in the Archibald last year, was my first try,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n His painting of indie rock star Ron S Peno from Died Pretty may not have made the cut for the nations most prestigious portrait prize, but it was selected for the Salon des Refuses show at the S.H. Ervin Gallery above the Rocks in Sydney, an annual ‘alternative’ selection of works from the Archibald.<\/p>\n “Basically I’m a no-name\u2026they get over 900 entries.<\/p>\n “You get a 10-second ‘are you noticeable or not.’<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/10\/In-Article-67.png\")
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