Greg Baker Flies High!

There are so many fetes, bazaars and exhibitions of one sort and another just now around Freo, you’d be forgiven for thinking it must be nearly Christmas!

But if there’s one exhibition of paintings you should make sure you see between now and 2 January 2022, it’s award-winning Greg Baker’s latest – ‘The Bright Shore’.

It features 34 works in Greg’s 71st solo exhibition. Greg’s paintings capture memories of his childhood in the Southwest, a little nostalgia and imagination in and around Fremantle`s iconic structures and studies of our ocean through the seasons.

The exhibition is on now at Greg James’ Sculpture Studio & Gallery at J Shed, Fleet Street in Fremantle.

Prior to 2020 Greg spent half the year in Europe painting and conducting painting workshops and tours. “Spending all my time in the beautiful state of Western Australia while the outside world has been in chaos throughout COVID, and what appeared to be conflict whenever the television was on, led me to an immersion in my immediate surroundings.” Greg said.

“The idea to paint this exhibition the way I have comes from a show I painted in Greece years ago. Michael and Patricia Kailis invited me to stay in their house on the island of Kastellorizo. It is a mountainous island, surrounded by sea, and I found painting from an elevated position quite natural, and it gave me a different way of looking at the ocean…It taught me to paint into the water.

“So, because our river and coastal areas don’t have the height I wanted for some of my paintings, I employed a friend with a drone and directed where I needed images to be taken. I then had an overview and could use licence where I wanted to create these paintings.”

Here are some images that explain what words may otherwise fail to convey about Greg’s feat in flying high.