Traditional Landscape and Still Life Artist
With a garden full of blossoming roses, camellias and azaleas, South Australian artist John McCartin never needs to look for inspiration to paint. Red brown chooks and white ducks fossick free range in nearby farmyards. Around the corner are country lanes and paddocks full of gnarly gum trees, grazing cattle with misty mornings and hazy golden sunsets – daily life is indeed a canvas.
The similarities between John’s paintings and those of Hans Heysen are unmistakable, but not intentional, when you discover that John resides in the Adelaide Hills on the outskirts of the charming village of Hahndorf, half an hour from Adelaide. It’s Hans Heysen country. Indeed one of John’s favourite trees is a beautiful old white gum tree, and the first one John painted when he moved to Adelaide. That same tree was sketched by Heysen long before John
