Patrick John Pearson

Oil on Stretched Canvas 120 x 180cm

'Arrivals and Departures (River Red Gum)' is the artist's interpretation of the patterns and marks on the trunk of a local river red gum. The bark patterns hide - or reveal, on close inspection, around 40 creatures. There are kangaroos of course, and birds galore, but also a Tasmanian tiger (or part of it as it departs) and turtles and a platypus – and the face of a dragon. See how many of the 40 you can find. The painting itself is calming and relaxing – even as it is also a comment on the intersection and interdependence of human and animal worlds.

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Oil on Canvas, 102 x 152cm

AU$3910

Oil on Canvas, 91 x 61 cm

The painting is inspired by the patterns in the bark of a Black Pine tree. The bark is beautiful, coarse-textured and if looked at closely seems to reveal elephants, shrews, badgers, tigers, a snake ... even hints of nude human forms. Ready to hang.

AU$1810

Oil on Canvas, 76 x 51 cm

I’ve done a few paintings of a tall eucalyptus tree next to the Simpson Shadehouse in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. This portrait emphasises the rich blues and lilacs that glow from the bark at different times of day. It also shows the multitude of animal, bird and human forms implied by the patterns in the trunk. Ready to hang.

AU$1510

Oil on Canvas, 152 x 102 cm

The painting is a treebark close-up ‘portrait’ of a white poplar tree next to the Colonel William Light Monument in Adelaide, South Australia. People go to see the monument, which is as they should – but the true star of the little park area there is the giant white poplar. The tree is absolutely gorgeous, speckled and spotted and gnarled, and the bark generates all sorts of images in its patterns – anteaters, bilbies, birds. Horses, toads, crocodiles, seahorses – Floki’s tree is a frenzy of life and an ode to living things everywhere. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 102 x 102 cm

The painting is an abstract portrait of the bark patterns in the trunk of a river red gum on the Currency Creek Waterfall trail near Middleton and Goolwa, in South Australia. In the patterns on the trunk of the eucalyptus are shapes that bring to mind all manner of creatures and forms – like miniature cave paintings. Kangaroos, owls, moose, frill-necked lizards, human shapes – on a very sculptural, textured canvas. In blues and creams and oranges and alizarin crimson, with the odd hint of violet.

Oil on Canvas 91 x 61 cm

An abstracted close-up portrait of the bark of a river red gum at Currency Creek Waterfall Trail near Middleton in South Australia. It's a vibrant, colourful, highly textured canvas, with lots of creatures and forms suggested by the patterns in the painting – a potoroo, a baby elephant, a hint of a giraffe's head, the merest glimpse of a human form.… Ready to hang.

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Palette knife Oil on Canvas, 30 x 41 cm

This little palette knife painting captures one of my favourite views towards the Faraglioni Rocks, which are so iconic of Capri. The slopes above the deep blues and violets of the Tyrrhenian Sea surrounding the island are covered with the rich dark greens of Mediterranean pine, and interspersed with flashes of white walls or brick-red roof tiles where there are breaks in the tree canopy. The eye is drawn also from the sea and the rocks down to the foreground balcony by the purples and reds of bougainvillea and geranium flowers. Ready to hang.

Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40 x 40 cm

A close up view of the famous Obelisk in Robe, South Australia, showing the jagged and craggy outcrop on which the structure rests, with thick impasto palette knife strokes evoking the rough rocks around the landmark.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 122 x 198 cm

This big painting is of a dramatic natural rock arch looking down upon the wonderfully coloured seawater of Capri. Trees manage to cling to the sides of the steep rock walls and even grow on the offshore stack seen through the window created by the arch, and as with many of my palette knife paintings, there are hints of animals and birds hidden in the worked colours of the rock and foreground branches and middle ground trees. The arch is huge and high, and even rather big boats below look like miniaturised toys. Ready to hang.

AUD$5910

Oil on Canvas, 70 x 50 cm

Inspired by an old pine tree at Brownhill Creek in Adelaide's eastern foothills, this painting explores the patterns in the bark of the trunk, and enlarges those patterns within the shape of tree itself. It is a riot of colour, almost approaches street art, and within the patterns various figures are suggested – a bagpiper and a giraffe with lowered neck among them.

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Oil on Canvas, 102 x 51 cm

In August 1915 there was only one Aleppo pine still standing at Gallipoli – and everyone called it the Lone Pine, and the place Lone Pine Ridge. After the battle, Lance Corporal Benjamin Charles Smith collected seed cones from the branches that had covered the Turkish trenches. The tree standing next to the War Memorial in Adelaide is a seedling descended from the original Lone Pine, planted out in 1991 as a memorial to the 2000 Anzacs lost in the battle of Lone Pine at Gallipoli. Hints of many birds and beasts – Pumba and Zazu among them – and even human forms are hidden in the bark patterns in the painting. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 92 x 61 cm

There's an avenue of ancient oaks lining the way into the vineyard of Groot Constantia in Cape Town, and one of them is hollowed out inside enough for two people to fit into. Its gnarled old bark has wonderful texture and shades of colour and makes it an ideal subject for a tree-portrait. It's the kind of tree that would be a place of Nature-worship in ancient times, and all sorts of images and spirits are hidden in the textured trunk. Ready to hang.

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Palette knife oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

A walking trail runs along the shores of Encounter Bay towards King's Beach, and the views from the trail are spectacular. The painting is thickly painted rich oil paint, applied using a palette knife, and it shows the distinctive sea colours of the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, as well as the vivid colours of the rocks and cliffs of the shoreline cliffs.

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Impasto Oil on Canvas, 122 x 91 cm

Korcula is an island of so many beaches I lost count. Maja Bay is special – right at the end of a long and stony unpaved track, down a rocky path with the wonderful sound of cicadas ringing loudly in the sunshine, and with the clearest, most crystal water I have seen anywhere. It’s a nudist beach that is well hidden and spectacularly lovely. I have used palette knife impasto for the rocks that drop so steeply into the water, and to show the texture of the trees, mainly pines, hugging the cliffside, and then much more considered brushwork for the foreground stones, many of which are underwater, and for the greens and blues of the water.

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Oil on canvas, 61 x 91 cm

A mid-sized canvas, highly textured, inspired by the glorious Second Valley in the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Painted in impressionist style using palette knife and saturated with colour, just as the place is in real life on a hot and breathless day when the water is crisp and delicious to jump into, the painting captures the feeling and beauty of this favourite spot.

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Oil on Canvas, 100 x 150 cm

The painting is an abstract portrait inspired by an old and partially burnt olive tree-stump in the hills above Itri in Italy, which was reworked and refashioned in the artist's mind so that its looping whorls and whirling patterns are emphasised and form part of an artistic ode in oil paint to motherhood – symbols of motherhood, both human and animal, on land and at sea, abound. The overall effect on the viewer is a deep sense of exhilaration and optimism. Stretched canvas, ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 122 x 183 cm

The Treebark paintings are portrait-like works inspired by the beauty and strangeness of the trunks of individual trees on three continents. This is the base of the thousand-year-old Jedburgh oak, a last remnant of the ancient forest of Jed. Its deeply grooved and scarred and mossy bark seems almost like the old skin of any ancient being – elephant, or rhino, or folded rock. The painting is rich and vivid and dynamic, startling and yet reassuring that nature persists even through time and calamity. The painting teems with animals and birds and figures and eyes that watch the changes in the world, and each time the viewer gazes at the canvas, different images seem to appear. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 183 x 152 cm

This big painting was inspired by the old poplar tree located at The Grounds, a popular eating and meeting place in Alexandria in Sydney, Australia. The bark patterns are bold and intricate and whole neighbourhoods of figures are separated by long rivers of indigo grooves, shallow but fascinating in how they highlight protrusions and knots and fault-lines in the trunk. Ready to hang.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 30 x 41 cm

This is a small palette knife oil painting of the river and loch in Glen Affric, an area of great beauty that holds a particular fascination for me. The viewpoint is from the very edge of Loch Affric, so the mountains look even more immense than usual, and they’re partly reflected in the waters of the loch – together with the clouds gathering for another shower of snow. The painting is highly textured, pure in colour and blissfully peaceful.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 91 x 122 cm

Kayaking from Dubrovnik in Croatia around a nearby island, the white walls and mesmerisingly beautiful blue dome of this villa on the way back caught my attention – it was apparently built by a rich merchant for his mistress, and the blue roof tiles of the dome needed to match her blue eyes. It’s an absolute delight to the senses, with the colours being complemented by the lapping of the deep blue water against the rocks below the villa walls. I have used heavy impasto to capture the essence of the rocks of the cliff and the palms and the pines, as well as the clouds that were rolling in before a thundershower, and then finer brushwork for the sea-entrance to Dubrovnik old town with its terracotta roof tiles.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 76.2 x 76.2 cm

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Oil on Canvas, 152 x 102 cm

Winner of the Mark Butler Art Awards 2021 in the ‘Established Artist’ category. This abstract portrait of the patterns on the trunk of a very large and mature paper mulberry tree in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in South Australia shows a tree with distinctive and impressive bark, but also flowers and heavy fruit. The paper mulberry was used by ancient Austronesians to make barkcloth – and often became the ‘canvas’ for decorated paintings, so it is fitting that this portrait is reminiscent of both Eastern and Islander art. Even many of the animals the bark patterns hint at seem to be animals that accompanied the Austronesians as they expanded from island to island in the Pacific. A very fluid, dynamic, energetic painting , reflecting the swirling bark patterns of the tree’s trunk, and painted in optimistic uplifting colours. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 102 x 76 cm

'Turtles All The Way Down' is a richly patterned and textured work, immediately reminding the viewer of our heritage of cave art. The tree that inspired it is a plane tree in London that has such a distinctive bark, and such vivid colours, that it reminded me of the best cave paintings of Lascaux. It represents a tapestry of Creation, and the myth that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle, and that turtle rests on the back of another, and so on forever. There are so many animals and birds and nudes that they are hard to count. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 102 x 76 cm

There are many streets in London that are lined with plane trees, and this tree in Parsons Green has a delightfully patterned bark. It's full of red ochres and burnt siennas and rich greens as well as the palest yellows and violets, and was irresistible to paint. The canvas has been heavily overpainted so that it is rough and textural and gnarly, just like the bark of the tree which inspired it – and it is chock-full of animals and birds, including a meerkat at a typewriter.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40 x 80 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 91 x 152 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 76 x 102 cm

I spent almost a week wild camping alone in Glen Affric in winter, next to a small frozen lochan above Loch Affric itself, and it was a glorious place to be and in which to reflect. I saw no other humans at all, and made sure that when I left there were no signs I'd ever been there. This painting is mainly executed with palette knife, and is therefore highly textured, and I've loosened the connection to realism so that the scene feels almost archetypical and essential. SItting in front of it is immensely relaxing and peaceful.

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Oil on Canvas, 91 x 61 cm

An abstracted close-up portrait of the bark of a river red gum at Currency Creek Waterfall Trail near Middleton in South Australia. Shapes and forms of creatures 'hidden' in the bark patterns – or suggested by the patterns of the bark – are revealed in the painting. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 92 x 61 cm

Paperbark trees have fascinating bark textures and colours, paper-thin to thick sheets of fibrous matting that falls off periodically. This paperbark tree in Rosebery in Sydney just has dragon images and animal and bird and human figures jump straight from the bark patterns and textures. It is a very sensual painting and seems as if you are looking right into the layers of bark so that it is almost tangible. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 100 x 100 cm

The painting is an abstracted portrait of a big sugar gum eucalyptus on South Terrace in Adelaide, South Australia. The bark patterns on the tree trunk seemed vaguely to suggest monitor lizards and iguanas and chameleons as well as bird-like shapes so the final painting has all these plus dingoes, a wallaby or kangaroo with a joey in its pouch, a turtle and several ripe quandong fruits. Ready to hang.

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Palette-knife Oil on Canvas, 60 x 40 cm

On three sides of Tiberius’s ruined palace or villa on Capri, the cliffs drop sheer to the sea, and on the approach side, up the steep slope, he had a garrison stationed to protect him. Now the villa is quiet. The painting shows a walk that Tiberius must have done often, from the villa itself down to the edge of the cliff where his guest quarters were. Underfoot are the remains of mosaics of the path, littered now with the bright orange needles from the spindly pines that meet the winds off the sea. Ready to hang.

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Palette Knife Oil on Cotton Canvas, 40 x 40 cm

This is a small seascape of the famous ruins of the Port Willunga jetty, with a sea and a sky at the heat of summer and the almost total absence of shadows at midday.

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Oil on cotton canvas, 20 x 25 cm

A small Impressionist sketch in acrylic, quickly overlaid almost entirely in oils, where the artist captures the mood and feel of a remembered place from Provence – a place where cypresses line a stream just beside a rural trail into a small hillside village, where time seems to have no meaning. The painting has the feel of a long-lost quick oil sketch by Monet.

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Oil on Canvas, 100 x 90 cm

Barga is a town in the Tuscan hills, and is known as the most Scottish town in Italy, with many residents of Scottish heritage. This painting is an expressionist portrait of an old Mediterranean Pine right in the centre of the little town. In the bark tartan, animals and birds and fossils crowd together too, ravens and zebras and bats and Komodo dragons and owls and cats and snakes and Jurassic ferns (and an armadillo), linked by the long indigo rivers that are the resinous grooves of Mediterranean Pine bark. It's an invigorating canvas filled with energy and life.

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Oil on Canvas 198 x 152 cm

Daphne was the nymph who, pursued by Apollo, was transformed into a tree by the goddess Gaia or Daphne’s sea-god father, depending on which legend one hears. She turned into a laurel tree, but here I have her as the focus of the bark-portrait of an old olive tree in the hills above the town of Itri, in the Lazio region of Italy. As with most of the Treebark paintings, the portrait hides or reveals many other figures, faces and creatures in the bark. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas 70 x 50 cm

In the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in South Australia there’s a large and healthy coral tree – an Erythrina (meaning ‘red’ because most coral trees have red flowers). Where its trunk and curving branches have developed hollows and holes, parrots and lorikeets have set up home, adding yet more colour to what is already a stunningly beautiful sight. The chunky knots and knobbles upon white-blue smoothness that is the particular loveliness of coral trees’ bark made me think of eyes looking out from something velvety – peacock eyes. Ready to hang.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 122 x 198 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40.6 x 30.5 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40 x 60 cm

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Oil on Canvas, 122 x 92 cm

'Pangolin and Mandrill' is inspired by the bark of a syringa berry tree in Norwood in Adelaide, South Australia. The bark is richly patterned and reveals all manner of figures and birds and animals, including the faces of a pangolin and mandrill, but also an elephant or two and a tree kangaroo. Colours are sea-green and lilac and also deeper greens and shades of orange and red ochres. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 152 x 92 cm

The painting is a treebark close-up ‘portrait’ of a paperbark tree in Sydney, and I’ve imagined in the bark pattern the goddess Salacia. In Roman mythology, Salacia was the consort of Neptune, and was worshipped as the goddess of salt water – the Roman equivalent of the Greek Amphitrite, consort of Poseidon. She’s the mother of Triton, and associated with dolphins and sea-horses and all sorts of sea creatures, which in this painting are hidden in the folds of the tree’s bark – as well as other symbols of fertility and burgeoning life. Ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 76 x 61 cm

River red gum trees seem to have an infinite number of shapes and forms suggested in the patterns of their bark. This grand old river red gum in the town of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley wine region of South Australia has patterns that strongly resemble a grizzly bear's head – which inspired the painting. Bold, textured and colourful and filled with birds and bears – and the strange mouth-beaks of banksia seed pods.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 30.5 x 40.6 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 61 x 61 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40.6 x 30.5 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas

91.4 x 45.7 cm

A thickly textured palette knife painting of the trunk of an old river red gum in the town of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley of South Australia, with the thick oil paint seeming to show the shapes of creatures in the patterns of the tree. The background sky is rendered in brushwork and is Impressionist in style. Calming and uplifting. And ready to hang.

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Oil on Canvas, 40 x 30 cm

Part of a series of smaller palette-knife impasto paintings of river red gums in the Ikara-Flinders National Park in South Australia. Each painting shows the dominant pink-red colour of the soil and rocks of the area, as well as the fascinating shapes and patterns of the river red gums, which seem to twist and dance and survive, in hostile environmental conditions. This one has been split and burnt by lightning, but it's growing nevertheless! Ready to hang.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40 x 30 cm

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Oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm

On Adelaide’s Henley Beach Road stands a beautiful old grevillea robusta, or silky oak tree, with its distinctive leaves and bark. At waist height, there’s a burl on the tree’s trunk, and from the burl a mountain gorilla looks out at the observer, as do some more hidden animals. I’ve chosen to show the flaky bark that looks so much like a fossilised grey incarnation of the tree’s leaves as shades of green and orange - the orange to symbolise the great climate crisis that we all face, but which impacts far more directly the habitats of so many wild species on the edge of survival. Ready to hang.

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Oil on cotton canvas, 40 x 30 cm

This is a small abstract inspired by the bark patterns in a river red gum along the creek bank of Currency Creek in South Australia. The patterns in the tree trunk seem to show dancers within a forest, and this has been emphasised in the abstract – colours have been changed and deepened to reflect the movement of the human or human-like forms within the shapes of the trees around them.

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Oil on Canvas, 150 x 100 cm

This abstracted bark portrait is of a fallen and weather-stripped river red gum on the banks of Currency Creek, along the Waterfall Trail near Middleton in South Australia. The patterns in the fallen tree trunk carved by time and weather swirl into images that remind one of the paintings done in the Hall of Bulls in the Lascaux caves in France. There are multiple suggestions of aurochs or bulls or cows in the painting, as well as many other animal, bird and human forms – suggested but seldom obvious. Ready to hang.

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 46 x 36 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40.6 x 30.5 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 30.5 x 40.6 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 36 x 46 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 40.6 x 30.5 cm

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Palette Knife Oil on Canvas, 76.2 x 76.2 cm

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Oil on Canvas 76.2 x 76.2 cm

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Oil on Canvas 76.2 x 76.2 cm

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Oil on Canvas, 76.2 x 76.2 cm

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Palette knife oil on cotton canvas, 40 x 40 cm

The painting is a thickly painted (using palette knife) depiction on a stretched canvas of the morning light on a clump of gum trees along the River Murray at a place called Wigley Flat in the Riverlands of South Australia.

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