'You make me dream stories': Delving into Patrick Connor's colour universe
He’s an accomplished artist, respected academic, and producer of award-winning artists – and in an intimate sit-down conversation with Professor Stephen Dobson, we explore the thinking behind CQUniversity Associate Lecturer Patrick Connor’s practice and teaching philosophy.
Watch the vodcasts with episode 1 and episode 2, or listen to the full podcast.
Patrick’s early passion for painting and drawing eventually took him from the tropics of Central Queensland to the cool mountains of Toowoomba to study at the University of Southern Queensland, where he received the invaluable formative training that further propelled his journey into art.
Believing that art should have a positive impact, Patrick’s practice incorporates the subject matter that he observes around him.
“I think as creative people, we’re always drawn to expressing what exactly it is that’s around about us,” Patrick commented.
“Not only that but I believe some of the best work is accessible and relevant to people on the street – and as I’ve continued to develop my practice over time that is something I aim for – to capture that relationship to our contemporary world and society, through relevance and cogency.”
Having begun his career in the vocational sector teaching Certificate and Diploma qualifications, Patrick now coordinates visual art units in CQU’s Bachelor of Arts program, intricately balancing teaching practical skills with less tangible concepts such as design and colour.
“Once we begin to unwrap a students’ interest, we can look at the dimensions of the craft and connect the curriculum to their interest," he said.
“This in turn is empowering to the student and causes me to become more of a facilitator to unlock some direction within the student where I can be there to provide guidance, but essentially, they’re on their way.”
Patrick said he believes that visual art teaching should tie critical thinking with technical skills and design concepts. When incorporated into a creative process, these ingredients provide students with solid foundational knowledge which they can draw upon later. When describing the importance of design concepts, Patrick suggests that:
“The use of a meta language enables an agility of mind that helps you navigate through that creative process and before you know it, it becomes second-nature and central to what you do as part of the creative process,” Patrick explained.
“And in speaking of colour, it’s like its own universe – it’s chimerical, it shapeshifts all the time and you really can’t pin it down; it really is quite remarkable the way we relate to colour.”
In Prof Dobson’s eloquent way of capturing Patrick’s work that delicately balances technical skill and the poignancy of the world around us, he commented: “you make me dream stories”.
View Patrick Connor’s works via his artist page, and find out about studying art with CQUniversity on the course pages.
Transcript
[Music]
Professor Stephen Dobson:
Welcome, today I've been uh waiting to have a conversation with Pat Connor and before we get going on this and what he does, we'll just do our uh acknowledgement and we acknowledge we're land on the land of the Darumbal people and we acknowledge the custodian of the lands past present and emerging and we uh in the spirit of reconciliation we thank them for letting us have this
[Music]
Conversation T marora. And that that last kind of welcome and getting as ready for the meeting talks about the winds and the landscape and uh that we were going to be present so it it kind of talks about what we're going to be talking about.
Now when I first arrived in Rockhampton I was waiting outside of somebody's office and there this fantastic picture of uh a mine I'm not sure if it was a coal mine maybe it was a coal mine in oil about a meter and a half by meter and a half um on a wall uh and in the middle of these kind of coal faces, and it was an open it wasn't a deep mine was a a blue vacuum cleaner and and I thought hm that's interesting I wonder what that's about. And then I looked at the side there was a little uh label Pat Connor and and it belongs to our University and I remember asking somebody in the office I said them do these paintings ever get moved around the university and then and I said I'd love that one and lo and behold a week later it was being moved around and I had it so I'm privileged to be a speaking to you Pat and um we'll be talking about art and things and so so could you just tell me - so who are you?
[Music]
Patrick Connor:
That's a very existential question um.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
Share what you want.
Patrick Connor:
I grew up in central Queensland in fact I was born um not far from here in our um public uh Health System and grew up on the other side of the river and spent most of my early childhood and um I guess young adolescent life knocking about these regions um and ultimately went off to college as a lot of people a lot of people do.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
So what took you into the world of art have you always been we little kid painting on whatever you could get - what has taken you into this world?
Patrick Connor:
That's a really good question Stephen, uh yes I was always very interested in the visual arts I think um people who find themselves drawing and uh continue to draw often gravitate towards visually creative disciplines and I guess um I could identify with you know being one of those kinds of characters. Probably also a little bit more introverted than extroverted I was never going to be on the stage I'd be the world's worst comedian I can guarantee that um but probably was quite comfortable um observing things uh I get a great deal of pleasure out of looking at things around me and uh maybe picking up a a pencil as a young kid was a part of that um and probably showed a little bit of proficiency um sufficient I think um interest and proficiency for my mother to um to see if I wanted to you know do a little bit of training, and I remember going to um a place on a Saturday morning underneath someone's a lady's house house was called the Vanitelli School of Art and um I guess I picked up a paintbrush there and in particular you know started with gouache and oils and um tried to understand a reasonable method for being able to picture the things that I did see around me.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
And of course um I should have told the people that who are watching now of course you are an accomplished painter uh accomplished printmaker and um you didn't just fall into it so from from here as the little kid on a Saturday morning to now becoming both an accomplished in the skill of that and teaching will come back to - what was the journey?
Patrick Connor:
Well thank you for um thank you for those kind words from my point of view um sometimes you don't really celebrate all that well their achievements all you see is the shortcomings um just uh recently one of my students finished off one of her oral assessments with the comment that there's always so much more to learn and um that's indeed the case after I finished up uh with schooling here in central Queensland I went to Toowoomba to do an undergraduate Visual Arts degree and that's where I really got my formative training and um I certainly don't regret ever making that decision to do that it's um it's been a really wild and exciting Journey ever since. And to now find myself um teaching in a BA I couldn't imagine doing anything else um obviously I enjoy the craft I also very much enjoy being a student and um I enjoy being a teacher so um I think you know with with those interests uh I I feel like I'm very lucky to find myself in this situation can't imagine doing anything else in fact I really love what I do.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
And uh of course the thing with art is it's it um one of the intriguing things it's about multiple skills do you feel that uh when you started out and I referred to this lovely big oil painting um you probably had other ideas when you were working and trying things did you fall into doing oils or or and you and I have had a conversation about we were talking about watercolors and for me watercolors is as you shared in that conversation with you know you you kind of you make your decision Bang You're Gone you either get it right or wrong there's no way back and were you exploring these kind of things in your kind of formative art years?
Patrick Connor:
Uh yeah you do I guess um with respects to the first part of your question as it related to that painting um I did have some other things in mind and uh it was a part of a body of work that was exhibited uh locally here at our Regional art gallery and um you know that was a great opportunity for me and just prior to that I had been offered an alternate um sort of vocational pathway there was a job uh working at one of our local Central Queensland mines there were some aspects of the job that were attractive particularly the remuneration was um significantly higher than my pay packet as a government employee um, but there were other aspects that particularly the politics around um being employed by um a company that digs big big holes in the ground to extract coal was something of concern to me and I um so that quandary um really provided an opportunity to ponder a range of different things and in particular thinking about not just um our local economy and how much it's supported by our local Industries including um the coal Fields just Northwest of here. Naturally our state economy and also our um you know Federal GDP seems so heavily dependent on um the sale of Commodities overseas uh so that um really kind of microcosm if you like that personal experience where um the ethical considerations were playing around in my head and left kind of quandary for me. I thought when played out larger in a more you know in a broader social setting um wasn't dissimilar and that provided an avenue for a way of thinking about maybe an exhibition, and um thinking about the I hadn't really painted landscape paintings in such a long time and there was um an opportunity to return I guess to the landscape um using it um and the so a tradition of Australian landscape painting is a backdrop for that conversation.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
It's very it's very interesting, very interesting. And uh and I think I just to let the viewers know as well and uh and I recently discovered that you're actually now embarking on a a Master of Arts and in in in the world of like creative and performance arts uh people don't really do doctorates you know that isn't really the kind of thing they do they they do the master of - sometimes in America they call it master of Fine Arts I believe isn't it - and uh I see again you're quite interested in that um societal statement and you grappling with what is uh planetary art?
Patrick Connor:
If I was to draw back a little bit from um the specifics of that question Stephen I think for contemporary artists um particularly uh as a result of some pivotal shifts in European and American Visual Arts practices in the latter part of the 20th century I'm I'm particularly thinking around n um' 68 through the early '70s things really shifted a lot and um I believe that uh many people in the art World should we call it establishments um that was mostly European driven really were kind of reflecting on um the value of Art and uh at that time there were a range of ways of thinking about it and some Marxist discourses seemed to be useful as a way of reflecting on how um Gallery systems worked and how that maybe had impacts on the way we understand what those objects are and uh I think as a result of that contemporary visual artists are actually probably more keen than ever to try to make work that is um reasonably accessible, but more importantly um is relevant to people on the street and has some kind of relationship to our contemporary world and our society uh and um I guess maybe that's uh more recently reflecting on those things and my own practice um trying to develop a kind of cogency and relevance with the work by thinking in those terms.
Professor Stephen Dobson:
Oh that will be something worth following thank you for our first conversation.
Patrick Connor:
Yeah you're very welcome thank you.
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