To sit down with Drew Gregory for a chat is to open a door on the expressive and the impressive.
The Longwood artist settled into the township four years ago and this year completed the renovation of his studio by insulating a back yard shed and installing quite an effective wood heater, which he stops to fill every hour or so over a four-hour audience he gave The Euroa Gazette on Friday night.
Gregory has not so much delved into the world of superrealism art, as to have conquered it, and there is every chance he will go down in history as one of Australia’s masters behind the brush.
He has sold works to the US off the catalogue, has sold out his solo shows, and usually wins the people’s choice prize at mixed competitions, which reaps rewards.
“Being popular with the public means sales,” he said.
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"I was told once the one-third rule: if you sell more than a third of an exhibition, then you have underpriced yourself; sell under a third, and you're too expensive."
"So selling a third is about right, but selling out a show always feels good."
Which has done.
Common perceptions of art have brought him success, particularly during the art-buying heyday that he says ended with the new millennium.
“I think generally the average person in the street who doesn’t really follow the art world is about 100 years behind in some respects.
“There’s been so much creativity last century, but people want what looks realistic.
“People would rather have a Gainsborough than an impressionist’s work."
Never attempt to name-drop around Drew Gregory: this correspondent tried and was swamped by a man who has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Albert Tucker (they lunched every Tuesday in St Kilda) and Clifton Pugh (he rented a house on his property).
He’s dined with Barry Humphries (a keen landscape painter himself), who once opened a show of Gregory’s that was so tightly packed that he could not lift an elbow for his glass of champagne to reach his lips.
He is also a good friend with American author Whitley Strieber, but that’s a tangent of his journey for another time.
Right now, Gregory is rushing to complete a set of works for an exhibition in August and his final work was a sky, some masking tape for a straight horizon, and a bit of ‘roughing up’ of the foreground.
“Of course, the paintings all have to go off to the framers and that takes some time before they all come back,” he said.
“Don’t photograph this one, it’s not finished.”
His career would not be complete without a theft of one of his works A 600 million year history of Grong Grong, which in 1994 was lifted from the wall from the Eltham Public Library as an inside job, resulting in the first ever colour photograph in The Age recording the heist.
He then reproduced the piece, and it rests against the studio wall, the original gone forever.
His life is eclectic, having not only won a bag of prizes, but also rowed around Port Phillip Bay (mooring at Mornington to pop in on one of his exhibition’s openings in the main street), taught himself piano and started a band, and even knows how to pick up a live flamingo without it panicking – which he demonstrates.
He has kept a diary for decades, journaling everything he does, and has written a thriller trilogy.
He has come within three metres of a cranky rhinoceros (“the most terrified I’ve ever been, but it made walking past the water buffalo and wildebeest comparatively tame”), explored an endless wine cellar in tunnels beneath a Spanish desert, and even rounded up a dazzle of escaped zebras.
In the art world, he won the Tattersall’s Landscape Prize committee’s choice four times and the inaugural people’s choice, from just eight entries.
His most prestigious win was Nation’s Choice in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – garnering 27,000 votes – with a painting of his daughter.
Drew Gregory largely flies under the local radar, but first caught this masthead’s attention in February as he loitered outside the newspaper’s office and was snatched from the street for interviewing.
“I was admiring the gold leaf masthead on the window and the printing press on display through the other one,” he said.
“I once had a large printing press that I dragged around the country with me for twenty years.”
Having majored in printmaking and minoring in painting, he taught woodwork for 10 years before launching properly into art, having a break and then returning to it again.
Last year he judged the Yea and Mansfield art shows but he hints that it might be the last.
"It helps that my lady friend is in just about every club and society in Mansfield; she's very community minded.
"And I've done all that, been through all that, 30 years of clubs and societies and chairing meetings and everything else.
"Now I'm just living quietly in Longwood."
Midnight beckons and apologies are given for holding up his evening's work.
"Not a worry, the rush is over - this is the last one I need to finish.
"There's time."
His work can be viewed at drewgregoryartist.com.au
