Please Note: Reproduction of any image shown on this site may not be made for any reason whatsoever without the artists permission – Copyright remains with the artist.    For more information, see www.copyright.com.au and www.copyright.org.au.

PETER COAD

Born in 1947, Peter spent the first 10 years of his life in the Mallee town of Karoonda approximately 120kms south-east of Adelaide, South Australia, where he was surrounded by infinite and vast landscape. This explains his connection with wide-open spaces and the vibrant colours that nature presents which has had an immense influence on his work.

For subject matter he makes regular artistic journeys to many destinations in Australia and overseas, where he chooses locations that he can mindfully connect, and which have a strong spiritual and indigenous history. The cultural understanding and knowledge gained of each place clearly assists in his capturing the essence and feeling of the land in his paintings.

His career began in graphic arts excelling and winning awards in the fields of Silk Screen Printing and Signwriting but his passion, and the eventual demand for his paintings, saw him become a full-time professional artist. He has now been painting for over 40 years, held over 75 Solo Exhibitions and participated in more than 200 group shows. One major group show was a Selected South Australian Artists Exhibition held at the prestigious Kubo-Kuxta Gallery in San Sebastian, Spain. He has also served two terms as Vice President of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts, lectured on his art and been a participant, adviser and curator and judge of exhibitions in Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S.A.

His achievements in other areas of the arts are many, the following being just a few: In 1991 he organized and curated an exhibition held in Penang, Malaysia, of artwork of members from the Royal South Australian Society of Arts for the Adelaide/Georgetown Official Sister City, 25th Anniversary Celebration Visit with the Lord Mayor and Council Members of the City of Adelaide. One of his paintings was given as a gift to the City of Georgetown. In 2001 the Adelaide Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages chose Peter to be the first contemporary landscape artist to have two of his paintings reproduced for the Australian Commemorative Birth Certificates for the Year of the Outback. In 2005, Hollister Incorporated of Illinois U.S.A. chose one of Peter’s works to reproduce for their Christmas gift to their worldwide clients. Cairns City Council in Queensland, Australia, chose Peter’s paintings to give to two of their Sister Cities, one in 2005 to the City of Oyama in Japan as a commemorative gift for the signing of their Sister City Agreement and in 2006 one was given to the Mayor of Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province, China, for the Official Opening of the Australian designed “Friendship Gardens” in Zhanjiang.

Peter is also well-known to Film audiences as being commissioned by internationally acclaimed Australian Film Director, Rolf de Heer, to paint 14 large canvases which appear as static scenes in the Award-Winning film ‘The Tracker’. (A main feature of the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002 and the 51st Melbourne International Film Festival, also selected to participate in numerous International Film Festivals). The inclusion of original artwork in this way was a first for an Australian feature film and the process taken and images of these paintings are published in a Book and can be seen on a Documentary appearing on the DVD of the Film. Peter has also produced several documentaries which record his career in travel and painting.

Peter is a confident, energetic artist whose use of dramatic colours for his vigorous interpretations capture the glowing earthy yellows and oranges of the land, the ephemeral purples, aqua and blues of the sky and lagoons and they reflect the uniqueness of the terrain and the changes of the day and seasons. They also reveal to us landscapes of harsh yet breath-taking beauty as he skilfully blends symbolic depictions of mountains, wetlands, vegetation and bird life in an endeavour to convey an awareness of the delicate balance of the environment.

PUBLISHED AND/OR FEATURED IN THE FOLLOWING BOOKS/MAGAZINES:

• 2021   Coast Lines Magazine April 2021
• 2019   SA Life Magazine October 2019
• 2019    Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2019 Diary
• 2018   Mornington Peninsula Magazine, Victoria, July 2018 http://www.morningtonpeninsulamagazine.com.au/artseventsleisure/2018/7/2/colour-master-coad-celebrates-30-years-with-manyung-gallery-by-liz-rogers
• 2017   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2018 Diary
• 2017   Unbridling the Western Auteur – The University of Newcastle, Australia
• 2016   SA Life Magazine, November 2016
• 2016   Studies in Australasian Cinema or Film History by Dr Marita Bullock, The University of Sydney, Australia
• 2016   Arts & Medicine Section of the Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy Magazine, Ohio, U.S.A. http://cdt.amegroups.com/article/view/11705/15033
• 2016   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2017 Diary – Australia
• 2015   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2016 Diary – Australia
• 2014   International Westerns – Re-Locating the Frontier, Miller & Van Riper – U.S.A. 
• 2014   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2015 Diary  – Australia
• 2013   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2014 Diary  – Australia
• 2012   Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2013 Diary – Australia
• 2011    Artwork Featured on the Cover of the New South Wales Legal Aid 2012 Diary – Australia
• 2010   Boab Bulletin – No. 100 October 2010 – Landscape Art and the Kimberley – Kimberley Society Inc. Western Australia.
• 2010   Intangibles in Terra  Australia , Sala Kubo-Kuxta, Spain
• 2010    Skywest Inflight Magazine OUT there, May,  Western Australia/Northern Territory
• 2007    The Advertiser Review, May 5, South Australia
• 2006    YouYu Adelaide Japanese lifestyle magazine no. 28 South Australia/Japan
• 2006    Destinations Australia – Queensland
• 2003    Selected Contemporary Artists of Australia, Michael Berry – Victoria
• 2002     Peter Coad, Paintings and Drawings for the Film, The Tracker – South Australia
• 2000     International Artist Feb/March – New South Wales
• 1997    Camapa No. 3 Magazine – Russia
• 1991    Australian Artist Magazine, October – Sydney
• 1990    Craft-Arts Magazine, Oct/Dec – Sydney
• 1990    Artists and Galleries of Australia – Max Germein – Volumes 1 & 2, Third Edition Craftsman press, Sydney, Page 126

PETER COAD  – BIOGRAPHY – IN BRIEF

Peter’s life and career in art is extensive so it has been condensed into highlights and points of interest as under.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Born in 1947 his early years were spent in Karoonda, a small town in the Mallee area of South Australia. He moved to Adelaide in 1957 with his family where he could further his education. 

After leaving secondary school, Peter studied Graphic Arts, Sign Writing and Silk Screen Printing at Marleston Technical College coming Dux of the Class in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968. In 1967 he won the Sandusky Cup for Silk Screen Printing and Design.

1969-74 he worked as a Graphic Artist/Sign Writer for the South Australian Government.

1975-1977 Established his own Graphic Design and Sign Writing Business eventually selling it to pursue his career as an artist.

1978 he held his first solo exhibition and then continued to hold solo exhibitions nearly every year since.

1980 – 1981 he and his wife owned and managed a restaurant/gallery in Stirling, South Australia.

1996 he became a full-time artist selling his work throughout many galleries in Australia and overseas.

TRAVELS

Since 1979, Peter has travelled extensively to places throughout Australia, and also the world, some of those places being: The West Coast and Four-corners of the U.S.A, Alaska, Hawaii, and New York, Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Italy, France, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Greece, Belgium, England, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Seychelles, Kenya, Zimbabwe, New Guinea, Solomon Islands.

He has always stated that his travels and the cultures of each place inform his spiritual and creative energies.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

Peter has had extensive experience with a variety of arts organisations on a State and international level.  

He became Vice President of the Royal Society of Arts in 1997 eventually resigning from the Society in 2000 but whilst there, he curated many exhibitions including one which was taken to Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia, (which is Adelaide’s Sister City) for the Official Sister City 25year Anniversary in 1999.  This was held in recognition of the establishment of the Sister Cities by the then Premier of South Australia, Don Dunstan.

He has Lectured to Arts Societies and in Schools in Australia and Japan and Malaysia, and guest speaker at many events and charity organizations. 

Over the years, his generosity has seen him donate a variety of artworks to numerous Charities and causes for their fundraising events.

He has been interviewed on numerous radio and television stations and filmed and produced documentaries on his work and travels for the past 20 years.

In 2001 he spent one month in Arkaroola (Northern Flinders Ranges) South Australia to do preliminary artwork for the final paintings that appear in the Rolf de Heer feature film “The Tacker” released at the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002. The film has won many awards in Australia and internationally at a variety of film festivals.

He has an abiding interest in theatre and film and has supported many theatre groups.

He is described as a contemporary landscape painter although he has produced other series from influences of his overseas travels, such as the African Series, the Japanese Series and the geometrical work titled “Icons for Travellers” from the USA.

His work is undeniably unique and has appealed to many collectors in Australia and worldwide.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Peter has held 75 Solo Exhibitions, so the list is extensive – these are some of the more recent ones:

2023  Wentworth Galleries, Sydney, New South Wales

2022   Manyung Galleries, Malvern, Victoria

2021   Wentworth Galleries, Sydney, New South Wales (online exhibition due to COVID restrictions)

2020    LK Galleries, Mandoon Estate Gallery, ‘Visible Silence’, Caversham, and West Perth, Western Australia

2019     Art Images Gallery, Norwood, South Australia,  Peter’s 70^th  Birthday Solo Exhibition 

2018     Manyung Galleries, “Horizon”, Mt Eliza, Victoria

2017     Wentworth Galleries, “Under an Open Sky”, Sydney, New South Wales

2016      Art Images Gallery, Norwood, South Australia

2015      Bridgewater Mill Restaurant Gallery, Mt Barker, South Australia

2014      Wentworth Galleries, “A world without words”, Sydney, New South Wales

                “A Moving Moment” for SALA 2014 in support of the Hutt St Centre for the Homeless, Toop and Toop, The Abbey, Goodwood S,A

2013      The Prairie on O’Connell Café Gallery, “Collective” for SALA, North Adelaide, South Australia

2012      Linton and Kay Galleries, “When Memory Becomes Art”, Perth, Western Australia

2011      Portsea Art Gallery, Portsea, Victoria

              Prairie Hotel, “Beyond Parachilna” Parachilna, South Australia

              Karoonda Centenary Celebrations, District Council of Karoonda/East Murray Chambers, “Traveller in Landscape, Karoonda, South Australia

              Greenhill Galleries, ‘Traveller in Landscape”, North Adelaide, South Australia

2010      Waverley Homestead “Subconsciously Coad” SALA Exhibition, Willunga South Australia

              Glenferrie Road Contemporary Art Gallery “Subconsciously Coad” Malvern, Victoria

2009      LK Galleries, “Ancient Landscapes”, Perth, Western Australia

2008      Prairie Hotel, “Ancient Landscapes”, Parachilna, South Australia

              Framed, The Darwin Gallery, “Survey”, Darwin, Northern Territory

              Gallery at the Wentworth, “Ancient Landscapes”, Sydney, New South Wales

2007      Greenhill Galleries, “Retrospective Works 1975 – 2005”, North Adelaide, South Australia

              Reef & Rainforest Gallery, “New Works”, Cairns, Queensland

              Monsoon Gallery, “Survey”, Broome, Western Australia

2006      Greenhill Galleries/Hilton Adelaide, Large Canvas Exhibition, Adelaide, South Australia

               The New Paul Gullotti Galleries, Perth, Western Australia

2005      Monsoon Gallery, “Broome Diaries”, Broome, Western Australia.

              Greenhill Galleries, “Visions, Vistas and Volcanoes”, North Adelaide, South Australia.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Peter has exhibited in over 200 group exhibitions throughout every State of Australia and overseas in places such as Dubai, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Seoul – South Korea, New York, Los Angeles and San Sebastian – Spain.

 

Famed Australian Singer/Songwriter Russell Morris AM chose two of Peter’s Artworks for his award winning album, Red Dirt – Red Heart released 23rd October 2015. In November 2016, with this album, Russell won the Aria Award for the best Blues and Roots Album. Peter’s painting and the words to one song appear on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIWrAqj6GVo . Click on the links on this site or order a CD: www.russellmorris.com.au

OTHER LINKS:

• Youtube – documentary – “The River”
• Youtube – documentary – “When Memory Becomes Art”
• Youtube – documentary – “A World Without Words”
• Audio interview –Campfire conversations with Andrew Kennedy https://soundcloud.com/australiaontrack/campfire-conversations-an-artistic-connection-to-our-land-peter-coad
• Audio interview for Artworx Gallery Goolwa 2021 with Tania Ingerson – https://www.buzzsprout.com/1208858/8382441

Peter is featured on the Television Program “Put Colour in your Life” aired on 20th November 2015 on Australian Television Channel 74. You can view it on the link:  https://www.colourinyourlife.com.au/tv-show-ep/peter-coad/

 

THE FILM ‘THE TRACKER’

 

Purchase your copy of the book “Paintings and Drawings for the Film The Tracker” for the special price of A$20 (plus postage) by contacting Peter on the Contact Page below. The book describes the paintings used in the film and the process taken to produce the final canvases.

Peter’s involvement in the film is explained here-under.

Peter was commissioned by Internationally acclaimed Australian Film Producer/Director, Rolf de Heer, (www.vertigoproductions.com.au) to paint 14 Large Canvases which appear in his award winning feature movie THE TRACKER, which had its World Premiere as the opening film of the “Shedding Light” program for the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002. It was also the opening film for the 51st Melbourne International Film Festival and was invited to participate in the 59th Venice Film Festival and other international Film Festivals.

Peter spent one month in March 2001 at Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in northern South Australia where he painted Location Studies, did thumbnail sketches, drawings and coloured images, to gain the feel for the land, characters and story of the film. After his return to Adelaide he viewed the rushes and produced more small pencil and watercolour sketches which he and Rolf discussed prior to Peter painting the Final Colour Studies. These were again discussed before Peter painted the Final Canvasses which were filmed, then edited into the movie as static scenes.

The book, “PETER COAD Paintings and Drawings for the Film THE TRACKER”, explains the whole process and journey that Peter took to arrive at these 14 Canvases. It also gives his inner thoughts and the reasoning behind them. (Copies are available by contacting Peter directly using the Contact Details page or by ordering it through Galleries who exhibit Peter’s work).

THE MOVIE is about the Fanatic (Gary Sweet), a government trooper, who leads two white men, the Follower (Damon Gameau), an unseasoned trooper, and the Veteran (Grant Page), an experienced fighter. On horseback they follow an Aboriginal, the Tracker (David Gulpilil), searching for traces of the Fugitive (Noel Wilton), an Aboriginal accused of murdering a white woman. Massacre and murder follow. Clear cut notions of truth and justice are subverted and the question becomes not one of – will the Fugitive be caught, but what is black and what is white and who is leading whom?

Excerpts from a few of the numerous reviews on the movie:

De Heer’s use of Coad’s paintings adds an uncanny power to the film, strangely making the violence more meaningful, more tragic, taking away any notion that’s it’s only a movie. ….It’s actually a film that’s important not to miss… Margaret Pomeranz – The Movie Show

Another brilliant aspect is the use of art. Artist Peter Coad was commissioned to paint 14 landscape and figurative works for inclusion in the film, a first for an Australian Film. The paintings are used ingeniously to display violence in the film, a method that works to both soften the impact of the actions, and also make them so much more powerful. The works are melded beautifully into the landscape of the film, using dramatic and bold colour to depict the shocking and harsh nature of the land…..The Tracker is a socially important film in the history of Australia….Belinda Yench – The Blurb

The film’s mythic point of view is evocatively underlined by the substitution of illustrations for live action whenever violence erupts. These stylised images by the Australian artist Peter Coad create an aesthetic distance from the cruelty, lending the atrocities the stature of events in a historical mural that freezes the past into an eternal present…. Stephen Holden – The New York Times

But here, and in the further bloody incidents that occur as the tension mounts, de Heer avoids voyeuristically dwelling on the violence, by illustrating these dramas with painted images (by the Australian artist Peter Coad). This lends them a mythic quality, as though they were descriptions of events, passed down from generation to generation, finally to find expression in popular art…. Roderick Conway Morris – International Herald Tribune

These are the kind of devices that could appear as contrived, but here they work. The end result is something deceptively simple and potent….Rebort – jofilm U.K.

The interstitial artwork by Peter Coad is not just a novel trick of independent filmmaking, it’s an empathetic attack on the mind, jolting you out of your screen-fed complacency so that you have to think about what you’re seeing….Craig – bscene

PETER’S NEXT EXHIBITION:   TBA

If you wish to be invited to Peter’s next exhibition in your area please contact us using the Contact Details page or contact the galleries listed below.

The following galleries have stock of Peter’s work if you care to contact the one nearest to you or you are welcome to contact Peter as per the ‘contact details’ page.

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Peter is represented in Victoria by:

Manyung Galleries, Warehouse Unit 6/35 Progress Street, Mornington VIC ph: 03 9787 2953 or 0429 269 058 email: staff@manyunggallery.com.au www.manyunggallery.com.au (Manyung also have galleries at 113A Ocean Beach Road, Sorrento, Victoria, 6-10 Claremont Avenue, Malvern, Victoria, 335 Napier Street, Strathmore, Victoria, 37 Cook Street, Flinders, Victoria and 54 Mt Eliza Way, Mt Eliza, Victoria

 

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In Western Australia by:

Linton & Kay Fine Art 299 Railway Road (Cnr Nicholson Road) Subiaco WA 6008 Ph: (08) 9388 3300 and 11 Old Aberdeen Place, West Perth WA 6005 (08) 6465 4314 email: colleen@lintonandkay.com.au    www.lintonandkay.com.au

 

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In New South Wales by:

Wentworth Galleries (Sofitel Arcade) 61-101 Phillip Street, SYDNEY 2000 Ph: (02) 9223 1700 email: michele@wentworthgalleries.com.au   www.wentworthgalleries.com.au

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In South Australia by:

Artworx Gallery 12 Hays Street GOOLWA SA 5214 Ph: (08) 8555 0949 email: admin@artworxgallery.com.au   www.artworxgallery.com.au

Prairie Hotel and Outback Lodge – Parachilna South Australia ph: 1800 331 473 or 08 8648 4844 email: ellie@prairiehotel.com.au   www.prairiehotel.com.au

Contact Details.

  Mobile: 61+ (0)428 493 180

e-mail: coadart@bigpond.com