ARTIST SPOTLIGHT : GEORGE COOLEY: Artworks from the bungalow
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The art practice of George Cooley is rooted in a lifetime’s intimacy with the exacting beauty of the desert around Coober Pedy and the striking ridges and formation of Kanku‑Breakaways Conservation Park. Cooley has worked for decades as an opal miner - walking behind bulldozers, reading the land for subtle shifts in colour and stratum - as a painter he translates geological memory into sweeping, deeply coloured canvases. Cooley paints from memory, drawing on childhood and lifelong experiences of camping, hunting, prospecting, and traversing the land.
In Cooley’s paintings, which are often large-scale and textured with thick layers of paint applied by palette knife, the land becomes a kind of living map. He emphasises ochres, reds, purples, sunlit apricots and dusty greys to evoke the way the desert transforms through seasons, light changes, and shifting weather.
The paintings depict more than the landscape: they are acts of remembrance, cultural resonance, and personal storytelling. Cooley honours the shifting sands and strata of the land while also bearing testimony to decades of living on country, as miner and walker, observer and caretaker. George has been selected as finalist in the last three National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, is twice a Wynne Prize finalist and included in major national exhibition. Short St Gallery invites you to view his recently arrived artworks below. A price list is available via enquiries@shortstgallery.com.
In Cooley’s paintings, which are often large-scale and textured with thick layers of paint applied by palette knife, the land becomes a kind of living map. He emphasises ochres, reds, purples, sunlit apricots and dusty greys to evoke the way the desert transforms through seasons, light changes, and shifting weather.
The paintings depict more than the landscape: they are acts of remembrance, cultural resonance, and personal storytelling. Cooley honours the shifting sands and strata of the land while also bearing testimony to decades of living on country, as miner and walker, observer and caretaker. George has been selected as finalist in the last three National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, is twice a Wynne Prize finalist and included in major national exhibition. Short St Gallery invites you to view his recently arrived artworks below. A price list is available via enquiries@shortstgallery.com.
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