Lake Annecy In early September 2025, Charmaine and I set off on a 5-week trip to Europe with brief stops in Japan on the way up and on the way back. We had made a memorable trip to Japan and Taiwan in 2024, but this was our first trip to Europe since the dark days of COVID. What follows is just a peep into our 2025 trip, with some – but certainly not all – of the highlights. On the Way Up Our initial target was Paris, a city Charmaine had never visited and a city I hadn’t been to for 40...

Front elevation of the house John Beard’s recent exhibition of new (and some older) work at Messums West, Tisbury in the U.K. (closed 24/11/25) was, as one always expects with John, both innovative and a continuing exploration of long established concerns. One notable change was the generally small scale of the paintings – the largest being Sidmouth Coastline, Looking East (2025) at 110x138 cm, with several Sydney Harbour views from 2021, at roughly 51x61 cms, the rest smaller. This...

The following is the text of a talk I gave on June 18 th , 2025 at the Macquarie University Art Gallery in Sydney to launch the...