Territorial, 2009. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 76x76 cm.
Two Hills, 2009. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 76x76 cm.
Image reproduced courtesy of the artist.
During the warmer months Melbourne artist, Neville Pilven, spends a
lot of time painting at his cottage on the fringe of the Wimmera in Western
Central Victoria. His cottage-studio is located in a quiet rural area once
mined for gold. Pilven’s semi-realist landscape paintings border
on the poetic, with historic folk references employed as pictorial iconography;
an old tank, a remnant of a fence, or a dam. His sombre palette and
a sense of emotional connection to the landscape, veil a deeper questioning
upon the forces that shape nature and our place as people in the landscape—a
theme that resonates with the landscape paintings of Russell Drysdale.
Born in 1939, Pilven studied at the National
Gallery Art
School and the George Bell
School (drawing).
In the mid-1960s, Pilven left Australia
for several years of European travel, study and painting, to England, Spain
and Hydra Island, Greece. In 1972, he studied
printmaking at Morley College, London,
before returning to Australia
in 1973, to settle in Melbourne.
He was a finalist in the John McCaughey Invitation Art Prize, 1979, National
Gallery of Victoria. Neville has held twenty solo exhibitions, many with
leading Melbourne
galleries. He has undertaken commissions for Myer, Telstra Australia and
National Panasonic. His work is in collections including Artbank, Latrobe
University, Ansett, Westpac, National Bank, Telstra Australia,
Ridley, Potter Warburg and private collections in UK,
USA, Australia and Japan.