Roger Beale AO
Art has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. I gain great pleasure in creating it, sharing it and, with my wife of many years, collecting the works of others.
My art is very much in the Western tradition – my early training was by Betty and Roy Churcher, Melville Haysom, and John Molvig, all notable Queensland artists. My father was a keen amateur watercolorist and we haunted galleries when I was a child and teenager – a habit my wife and I have maintained throughout our life. I also studied classical techniques at the Florence Academy of Art after retirement from the public service.
Professor Sasha Grishin, author of the definitive Australian Art: a History has said of my art:
“The strength lies in a sensitive treatment of light hinting at the passing seasons and a certain transience of life in contrast to the permanence of the landscape…Beale’s finest works could be described as mood paintings set within a romantic sensibility. At their best they are highly evocative and lyrical and hark back to earlier traditions and conventions in art”
The main themes in my art – flowers, portraits and landscapes and the sublime are all represented here, as well as life studies and city scapes. My sketchbooks are as close as I have ever got to keeping a diary. They reflect a busy life – too much of it perhaps spent in conference rooms around the world until I moved to painting full time in 2014.
I would warmly welcome enquiries or comments, or find me on Instagram and Facebook @rogerbealeart