Gallery 3

16 - 27 September 2026

Opening Night

18 September | 6 - 8 pm

The exhibition closes at 3 pm on the final day.

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ARTIST  STATEMENT 

Paddy has always been a visual person, remembering faces he’s met and places he’s been. He is especially attracted to colourful settings and experiences the world in patterns and colour. His paintings are primarily based on real images he has seen, which he then expresses in patterns, layering colours and texture to create a surface worth exploring.

Paddy believes that ‘ART’ is essentially in the eye of the beholder. There’s no right or wrong to interpreting or evaluating art, you either like a piece of art or you don’t. This stance stems from an early formative experience in 1968 when his Year 9 Art teacher had just given him a clip across the head and a telling off for ‘wasting paint’. The room fell silent, leaving him with nowhere to hide. That very day the Governor General of Victoria, Major General Sir Rohan Delacombe, was visiting the school and made a spontaneous visit to the Art class with the Principal. After walking around the room observing each of the students at work, he circled back to Paddy’s desk and remarked “what a creative young boy you have here!”. The teacher’s prompt reply “Yes, Patrick is one of our best students” had the whole class rolling on the floor at the irony!

58 years later and thanks to two inspiring mentors who nurtured his creative spirit, Trevor Sault and Doug Wright, Paddy is still ‘wasting paint’.

An Art Gallery survey estimated that a gallery visitor spends on average about 5 seconds in front of an art piece. Paddy seeks to create tactile works that draw people in beyond this time frame to explore the surface more closely and engage with the texture. Once you own the work, it is designed to be touched!

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ARTIST  BIOGRAPHY

Paddy O’Sullivan is a Melbourne-based abstract artist whose current work explores landscapes through colour and texture. A graduate of Ballarat University’s Art School and Melbourne University, Paddy has both exhibited his own works and used his skills as an art teacher to inspire budding young artists at a rural high school. Several of his students have gone on to have successful careers as painters, illustrators and sculptors. Paddy attributes much of his own success as an artist to his own former art teacher, Trevor Sault and lecturer Doug Wright,  whose guidance and influence lit a creative spark.