Christopher Lees

Sign-painter / opal miner turned landscape painter breathes new life into the art market with his arresting landscapes. Christopher Lees reflects an authority in his brushstrokes which is evident in his monumental perspectives of the Australian terrain. In his twenties Lees travelled extensively throughout remote Australia, working as an opal miner and sign-writer. Now based in rural Victoria, his experiences of the outback (and his own bush property and surrounds) unravel on the canvas in panoramic and dioramic form.

He says that, as a self-taught artist, painting is more instinctual for him. “I know if a painting is working – practice also helps guide instinct… I would like my work to live on and I am conscious that people are buying works for investment.”

Lees’s process is straightforward. He begins with a sketch which organises the painting, creating a sense of balance and proportion that is transposed onto the canvas, working to achieve a harmonious composition. The resultant landscapes are still, stark, and mysterious. Usually devoid of people and fauna, they echo the experience of the painter in the studio with only his creative muse for company.

“I exaggerate space and the elements of landscape which makes my work theatrical, but colour is the key…I want to ensure that people understand my work is concerned with the Australian landscape – I love those earthy colours.”

Painterly detail richly illuminates skies with delicate layers of graduated colour. Finger-painting adds immediacy to cliff faces and calligraphic brushwork delicately enhances tree branches. Lees admires Fred Williams’ abstractions in nature, and this influence appears in his reductionist tree forms.

Lees has built up a visual memory bank of composites from his travels, which he continually refers to and draws upon for his work. Secret streams of iron-coloured water for example, are bordered by iconic eucalypt and mountainsides littered with boulders, cliffs and crevasses – a scene not from one particular place, but a merging of various. Lees’ process is straightforward, beginning with a sketch which organises the painting, creating a sense of balance and proportion that is transposed onto the canvas. The resultant landscapes are still, stark, and mysterious. Lees strives to attain perfection in the way each subject is rendered and harmony in composition. Usually devoid of people and fauna, they echo the experience of the painter in the studio with only his creative muse for company.

“I like creating sheer cliff faces and the towering mountains. My paintings don’t depict one specific place. Instead I want to convey a feeling about the Australian landscape in totality.”

Demand for his work is now driven by overseas and local collectors. Lees is represented in corporate and private collections in Australia, Asia, Europe, the UK and the US.

“The Australian landscape is an enigma of nature’s imagination. I try to illustrate this concept in my paintings. In my canvasses no picturesque European gardens or manicured lawns are in evidence, but gnarly, craggy, primeval escarpments that plummet into the abyss. The landforms are not easily accessible, viewed only by floating on the deep black liquid with no floor, or birdlike, hovering over this strange land in a dreamlike trance. There are no sounds, no movement or signs of life, but fragments of familiar motifs such as boulders, trees and occasionally fence lines that suggest enigmatic past habitations.

I try to represent the Australian bush with emotions that can’t be written down. I want the viewer to feel alone, at peace, and privileged to behold this surreal landscape. I want to connect with the viewer by using colour and familiar motifs that are typically associated with the Australian environment. Exaggeration of space and elements create a theatrical representation of the landscape.”