Artist's profile

Tony Hastings

Email:tonypaints@yahoo.com
Phone (Australia): 03 52 616 994

Life goal: "To be as good as I can be at all the things that I do, and to do as much good as I can with the skills that I have got."

Education: Sydney College of the Arts (Industrial Design), University of Technology (Mechanical Engineering), Sydney, Adult Education courses, and Barbara Hastings Art School.

afternoon light, at rileys ridge
"Afternoon Light, Rileys Ridge", a favourite of many from the "Blue Forest, Green Seas" Exhibition

"Forest Blues", the title painting of my first Melbourne exhibiton

"My aim in painting is to show the beauty and value of nature. I like to portray threatened landscapes, such as forest about to be clearfelled, or endangered species. I aim to capture not only what a scene looks like, but what it feels like to be there. I work from life as much as possible, or from sketches or my own photos. I like to be out-there, doing it."

"I had my first solo exhibition in 1997, when I hung a dozen paintings, several drawings and thirty photos in the foyer of Sydney's Environmental Film Festival. All of the work was of Goolengook forest in East Gippsland, which is an ancient old-growth rainforest, currently being clearfelled. The aim of the exhibition was to raise awareness of what is being lost, and to raise funds for the blockade."

Blue forest, green seas" was a solo exhibiton I staged at the Courthouse Cafe, in Geelong. It was planned for just December, 1999, but at the proprieter's request was extended another month. The exhibition featured paintings of Riley's Ridge in the Otways, a forest being protected by a blockade at the time.

"Forest blues", another solo exhibiton, was held during late February at the Arcadia Cafe in Fitzroy. A blues night opened the event, which displayed fresh Otways and Goolengook paintings.

Well known paintings of Tony's include:

"Goolengook, Too Precious to Log", a 6m x 2.2m forest scene, currently hanging on Brunswick Street, Melbourne, as a billboard for the Wilderness Society.

"Endangered Tibet", 3 scrolls, each 1.2m x 5m, which were hung during the Dalai Llama's tour last year. (It was said that the Dalai Llama spent so much of his talk gazing at the paintings that he virtually spoke only to them).

"Stop Logging Old-Growth Forest", a 10m x 5m banner, which has been hung in places such as; in front of 30,000 people at the Big Day Out, off woodchip ships (seen on TV), and recently in front of Amcor's AGM (photographed in The Age, Business Section).

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