Arjuna Watson has come a long way since his first artworks were sprayed across the walls and trains of Melbourne.
An early brush with authorities as a teen and a stint studying life-drawing classes with artist Craig Foster paved the way for his own style of painting, one he calls “urban realism”.
Since then, he’s spent two decades living in the Bahamas – and now the Footscray artist is back home and ready to share his work.
He credits two decades of painting in the tropics with influencing his use of colour and showing him how to paint vibrantly.
“I paint what I see, not what is there, but this doesn’t mean I’m an abstract artist,” he said.
“I’ve been called a modernist by others. Also my process is to make as many things as I use, I make my own stretching bars and stretch my own canvas and also try to recycle as much as possible.”
Watson said that while suburbs such as St Kilda and Prahran had lost their vibe while he was living abroad, and Collingwood and Brunswick “had too many cool people” for him, Footscray was somewhere he immediately felt at home.
“I heard so many different languages being spoken and loved how accepting of multiculturalism it is here in Footscray,” he said.
“It’s been such a journey returning back to Australia and learning to feel at home when I’ve never really felt like I belonged here, but in Footscray where it’s become very multicultural and accepting of immigrants, I now finally feel like a belong somewhere.”
Watson will be holding a pop-up exhibition this Saturday as part of the Due West Festival, showing several pieces of his recent work.
“It’s great to be part of a festival that’s dedicated to supporting the creative community living in Footscray and I’m looking forward to seeing some new, and hopefully old, faces at the exhibition and talking about my work,” he said.
“I am truly happy to be back, but to start from scratch and be unknown here is humbling to say the least, but here I am so here I go.”
Urban Realism: An Exhibition will be held from noon-4pm on Saturday at 34 Cowper Street, Footscray, the future site of Cowper Residences.
Details: duewestfestival.com.au
