The ‘Seasick’ Pictures Gallery

John Adderley, a Freo resident and retired town planner, is also an active member of the Australian Society of Marine Artists, a body of diverse artists and others interested in marine and maritime art – painters, lithographers and printmakers, sculptors, model-makers, historians and students.

After leaving school in Perth in the early 1960’s, John went to sea as an apprentice (midshipman) with the Liverpool based Blue Funnel Line (Alfred Holt & Co).

He enjoyed about ten years at sea with a number of shipping companies, travelling to many fascinating parts of the world, including China and East Germany, coasting around Europe and Australia, and ending with a couple of adventurous years on the lighthouse tender MV Cape Don.

Sensing change in the outlook for a career at sea, he went on to university in Perth in the 1970’s and began a new career as a town and regional planner. John practised as a municipal planner, then as a director of development of a metropolitan regional centre, and concluded his career in the 2000’s as a sessional member of the Western Australian State Administrative Tribunal.

He then took up drawing and painting following retirement, initially concentrating on pastel drawings, then moving on to paint acrylic on canvas.

This gallery of John’s paintings reflects his time at sea.

He says his pictures are often based on memories of personal experiences and he tries to compose them to ‘tell the story’ of that experience.

He hopes his pictures of seafaring life in the 1960’s might convey something of the atmosphere and activities of an exciting and adventurous maritime era that is long gone; an era which he personally cherishes and hopes can be shared by these paintings.

In the sense we speak of people being ‘lovesick’, John may be said to be ‘seasick’!