Artist Jason Haufe is an accomplished draughtsman and has been selected for the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW (Sydney, Australia) in 2009, 2008 and 2005. Recently, Haufe gave a talk to the tenants at ‘Craftworks’, the newly completed commercial complex in Mollison street, Abbottsford. Inspired by the Bauhaus movement, Craftworks has been designed by CHT Architects to support and encourage collaborative thinking. The entry foyer of the building acts as an art gallery where artists are invited to talk to the building’s tenants. In the most recent artist’s talk, Jason Haufe held his Abbottsford audience spellbound, when he gave a passionate and informative talk about his artwork and the process used in creating it. Jason said that whilst studying Fine Art at Monash University, he was initially interested in figuration but then gradually moved on to non representational art. It was fascinating to hear him talk about the process he employs to create his large and colourful artworks. In order for the colour harmony to work within the painting and to create its own colour perspective, Jason firstly creates smaller scale versions and drawings. It isn’t until he finds the perfect balance that he proceeds to a larger canvas and then he only paints one canvas at a time. Each tone is determined and premixed before commencing on a large canvas. Jason talked about how he uses various colours to move the viewer’s eye around the painting. The shapes he says are also a way of creating perspective, adding to that push and pull and optical illusion. The delineation of some shapes was inspired by Picasso and Cezanne. All in all it was a very informative and passionate talk and the audience, who were mostly architects could immediately relate it to their own discipline.
