Outback inspires artist

Laird, an award-winning artist, first picked up a paint brush on a school art excursion, capturing landscapes around Sydney's heritage-listed Royal National Park.

"Painting came very naturally to me," says Laird who is a former student at Endeavour High School at Caringbah.

After the excursion, Laird was asked to take some paintings to school for display during Education Week. His work was such a hit that teachers and staff bought all the paintings.

Laird, 58, did a few jobs after school, including a stint in retail, but he was always painting in his spare time.

"I started putting work into exhibitions and it took off a bit, so I ended up leaving my job and doing painting full-time," he said.

That was 35 years ago, and Laird is still painting full-time. In that time, he owned the Terralong Gallery at Kiama where he worked, sold and encouraged the development of art in Kiama.

Then Laird opened a framing business at Albion Park - Laird's Custom Framing and Fine Art - which is now run by his son David.

Laird staged his first exhibition in 1977. His works hang in government, private and corporate collections in Australia, Japan, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and countries in South America.

During 1997 to 1998 he completed major commissions for Optus.

Laird also won a prize for best Australian landscape painting at the Herald Sun Camberwell Rotary Art Show in 2005 for his painting Culburra Bushland.

Now Laird is staging his first exhibition held in his own gallery at the Albion Park site.

"I'm delighted to host our inaugural exhibition," he said.

"It's something that I've been working towards for the past two years and I'm very excited with the work we are showing."

He said the exhibition, which starts this Wednesday and ends on Christmas Eve, would also showcase the latest work of emerging South Coast artists Vivien Tanner and Sharon Blair.

Laird said the exhibition would feature works ranging from the traditional to the abstract.

"While the Australian landscape has been my main inspiration, some of the paintings in this exhibition have been drawn from other sources and are a vehicle for my constant experimentation with acrylic and mixed media," Laird said.

Tanner, an award-winning artist living and painting in the Illawarra, works in acrylics, watercolour, pen and wash and mixed media.

Blair is an abstract artist who uses mixed water media techniques and unusual materials throughout her work.

Laird said that while he had painted local landscapes, over many years, his latest works were inspired by the Australian outback.

"Recently my real interest has been the outback and painting that vastness of the country and the ruggedness of it and the light that's out there," he said.

The exhibition is at unit 5, 29-31 Durgadin Drive, Albion Park. The paintings can be viewed at www.lairds.com.au.