Meet Your Teacher
Trevor Purvis
Trevor is an artist who believes that the Australian
countryside is a never-ending source of creative inspiration. Exploration and
appreciation of the extreme nature of the Australian landscape from the deserts
to the coastline, searching for moments of inspiration and wonderment. The
subtle visual variants of light, colour and topography, unique to anywhere else
in the world and well worth the observation and exploration.
Trevor’s bold use of colour and exaggerated mark-making is
his signature approach to the Australian landscape. Using gestural brushwork,
his loose and seemingly accidental style instinctively exaggerates the colour
range onto the picture plane with bold aptitude, his rich layered painterly
works challenging traditional landscape norms. Using bold colour
interpretations of light, Trevor explores the variations of light and texture
in an expressive and personal way.
Trevor completed his Graphic Art degree at the Natal College
of Art in South Africa. This started a thirty year advertising career which
took him to senior Creative positions in Johannesburg, Salisbury, London,
Frankfurt, Sydney, Adelaide, Bangkok, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, Abu Dhabi and
most recently Moscow. His many international creative awards include the most
prestigious Gold Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival.
He discovered outback Australia after leaving advertising
and attending the National Art School in Sydney, this in turn led he and his
wife Beryl, on a two year off-road Australian odyssey which culminated in a
successful solo exhibition at the Atwell Gallery in Perth.
He now paints full-time at his studio in Cooroy surrounded
by the verdant Noosa Hinterland. An intrepid traveller, Trevor continues his
journeys around the Australian outback, painting smaller ‘en plein air’ works,
as well as larger pieces back in the studio. He paints dozens of acrylic
studies on paper and turns these studies into energetic landscapes back in his
picturesque Maluti Studio.
Exhibitions
- Atwell
Gallery, Perth, April 2004 (solo) - McCann
Erickson, Melbourne, June 2006 (solo) - The
Artistry Gallery, Melbourne, 2006-2007 - Finalist
Noosa National Art Prize, 2015 - Finalist
Lyn McCae drawing prize Noosa Regional Gallery 2017 & 18 & 20 - The
Butter Factory Arts Centre, Solo exhibition June 2016 - The
Butter Factory Arts Centre, Solo exhibition May 2017 - Butter
Factory Friends exhibition 2017 - Maroochy
Environment Centre exhibition 2018 - Winner
2D prize. Noosa Art Prize. 2019 - Solo
Exhibition Ewart Gallery, Sydney, Jan 2020 - Project
90 Gallery, Sydney - Finalist
in Sunshine Coast Art Prize 2021 - Finalist
the Du Rietz Art Prize 2021 - Sketch
Collective gallery Surry Hills Sydney 2022 - SOLO Exhibition
“Australian Sienna” Noosa Regional gallery 2023
- SOLO exhibition
“Australia Sienna 2” Broken Hill City Art Gallery 2024
- FINALIST
Local contemporary Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery 2024
- SOLO exhibition
“Interpreting the outback” Field Trip Gallery, Brisbane. March 2025
- FINALIST Du Rietz Art Prize 2025