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National Treasure Ken Done on 80s Nostalgia, Climate Change, and Donald Trump

We chat to the iconic painter as he gazes out at Sydney Harbour from his studio.
Ken Done. Photography by Stuart Spence. All images courtesy of Ken Done Gallery

Ken Done represents a mythic era in Australian history—a simpler and sunnier time, when shrimp were grilled on barbies and weekends were spent at Bondi Beach. Back in the 80s and 90s, the iconic design brand the artist ran with his wife Judy clothed a generation in exuberantly colourful and intrinsically Aussie swimsuits and t-shirts.

For the past few decades though, Done has put aside the merchandise and focused on painting full time. His distinctively bright landscapes still evoke those nostalgic feelings—although there’s plenty more going on beneath their patterned surfaces.

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The Creators Project caught up with the artist to talk about his current practice.

The Creators Project: Hi Ken, how's your day going so far? Ken Done: It's beautiful. I'm in the studio, I've been here most of the day. I'm working on one very large painting and one slightly smaller picture. I'm looking out the window and I can see the beach, I can see the pink magnolia tree that's in full bloom, a couple of magpies waiting to be fed, some oranges on the orange trees. And the water, which is looking good. Sounds a bit better than the Melbourne rain I'm looking at. I don't suppose you ever get sick of painting Sydney Harbour?

I don't. I'm fortunate to live right beside the harbour and swim in it everyday. I did do a trip to the Antarctic last year and had a big exhibition based on that. My next exhibition will be an exhibition based on the Barrier Reef—so there are all kinds of things I'm painting. But the short answer is that no, I don't get sick of painting Sydney Harbour.

Postcard from Sydney, yellow spotted sea (2016)

Were you thinking about issues of climate change when visiting Antarctica?

Yes, of course. And my paintings about the Barrier Reef are also political paintings in a sense, in that they try to show how beautiful the Barrier Reef and all coral reefs are. And therefore they should make us aware of the problems inherent in global warming. Behind every picture that might attempt to be beautiful, there is a message if you're there to receive it.

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Which is interesting, because some people are quick to label your work as purely decorative.

Sure, and yes some of them are very decorative. But I don't shy away from that word. I think in the time in which we live, where on television at night you can see horrific things—suicide bombers, that kind of thing, for me art should be more like poetry and give you pleasure over time. If you're lucky enough to be born in Australia then hopefully art can be something that gives you joy.

People and Penguins III (2016)

Your paintings are incredibly optimistic and bright.

It depends what you see. I mean there are lots of pictures about Sydney Harbour that are grey and soft and rather—not sad, but not bright and colourful. You can use art to describe any particular emotion. But I will say that most of the time I'm optimistic and most of the time I'm very pleased to be living in Australia.

Sydney has changed a lot since you first started painting it. For example, housing is so expensive that most people can’t afford to live near the harbour. Have you noticed a shift in mood?

Obviously not everyone can live where I live. But it took me a long time to get this house, and I probably couldn't afford to buy it now, but because I bought it about twenty years ago I could. And certainly real estate around Sydney Harbour are very expensive. But even though I live on the waterfront, people can walk in front of the rocks in front of my house. No one in Australia should be able to own the beach.

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Postcard from Sydney, pink Opera House (2016)

Are you interested in politics?

I'm kind of interested in politics—like obviously I don't want Donald Trump to get in. If I could nominate someone to be in charge of everything, I'd make it an 11-year-old girl or 11-year-old boy. I think at that age you understand right from wrong. It's just that when we get older it gets a touch more complicated.

I was at a kindergarten yesterday with my grandchildren and they'd all spent time making versions of my paintings. And they're all better than mine, no question. Because these are five-year-olds and they're really fresh and bright and enthusiastic and certainly in my kind of painting you want to try and somehow remember that first excitement, that feeling of something, when you paint it.

Why do we link Ken Done with patriotism and 80s nostalgia?

In 1980, when I had my first exhibition, I made twelve t-shirts to give to the press with a drawing of Sydney Harbour on them. It was about timing. It was a very optimistic time for Australia, the 1980s. There wasn't much you could buy that was celebrating the city, and for the first time I think that generation could go to London or New York and not go with some kind of cultural chip on their shoulder. You can have a feeling about the Opera House even if you live on a Queensland cattle station. You feel something for it. There are some things that are universally Australian.

I'm not sure those 1980s Australian feelings still exist as much anymore.

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Well I think it's because your generation feels a bit more international. Certainly compared to the Australia of the 1940s when I was born or even in the 1980s, we're much more international now. Therefore, some of those even slightly cliched feelings we have of the outback and the bushman…we're not bushmen, we cling to the suburbs like lots of people in the world. But I hope that there's still an optimism about living in Australia. You wake up here, it's not Baghdad. You're very, very fortunate really.

Sunday Sailing (2016)

What’s your relationship with the Australian art establishment like?

It's very hard to define who the art establishment actually is. But I've always known that my relationship would be difficult in this country, because the very first things that people saw of mine sought a wide audience and were very commercial things. No question about it. I mean it was a shop—you put things in the shop and you want people to buy them. I always knew that to some people, to some older people, because that wasn't the track that Australian artists were supposed to go up, they were a bit threatened by that. But I don't know, that's what I've done and still do.

Is there a difference between art and illustration?

There’s a huge difference between art and design. In our business, we were making things for people to buy. But with my art, I'm only trying to please myself. The whole criteria is different. The link is that in a good painting there are always elements of good design. Some kind of visual understanding of things. I would say there's a link between the two but you start with a different premise.

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Balmoral 2 (2016)

You worked for years in advertising before you turned to art and design. Would you advise younger artists to fund their more creative endeavours with commercial work?

Yeah, I would. Of course, if you want to be a painter, go away and paint a thousand paintings. If you want to have a career in something related to art—could be illustration, design, art direction, curatorial—you have to love it. You have to really want it. You can think about it, you can chat about it, you can have long and deep conversations about it, but you actually have to do it.

Are your aims as a painter different now to when you started out?

No, the aim doesn't change. The aim is to be as good as you can and you make those decisions yourself. I work on my own and don't ask anyone else, most of the time. And you set the problem yourself and you're trying to always get better at it. It's an impossible thing to define, just a drive that you have to continue to paint.

You can find out more about Ken Done here and follow his gallery on Instagram. His memoir, A Life Coloured Inis out now.

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