PATRICK SHIRVINGTON
Sydney, Australia | Born 1952
Patrick Shirvington is an Australian artist whose work is deeply connected to the natural environment. For more than five decades he has explored the Australian landscape through painting and drawing, developing a distinctive visual language in which observation, memory and imagination come together. Rather than simply recording a landscape as it appears, Shirvington seeks to express its atmosphere, movement and underlying rhythms — the often unseen connections between trees, water, weather and the living environment.
Shirvington began painting full-time in 1975, the same year he studied life drawing at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. His continuing interest in the relationship between art and nature later led him to study Conservation and Land Management, and in 2015 he completed a Master of Cross Disciplinary Art & Design at the University of New South Wales. Drawing remains fundamental to his practice and provides the foundation for both his intimate works on paper and his larger, more expressive paintings.
Throughout his career Shirvington has exhibited extensively in Australia. His long exhibition history includes numerous solo exhibitions from 1980 onwards, and his work has been selected for exhibitions including the Archibald Prize, Fleurieu Biennale Landscape Prize, Kedumba Drawing Award, Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, Paddington Art Prize and the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize. His practice continues today, with exhibitions, residencies and drawing workshops extending through 2026.
The Australian bush — particularly the Colo and Hawkesbury regions of New South Wales — has been a continuing source of inspiration. Shirvington returns repeatedly to rivers, trees, banksias, reflections and changing weather, responding to the landscape rather than merely describing it. Layers of energetic marks, sweeping lines and passages of colour give his paintings a sense of movement and allow the landscape to shift between observation and abstraction.
This relationship with place can be seen particularly well in the works represented by Plum Gallery. Paintings such as Upper Colo, Approaching Storm Colo, River Bend, Colo Afternoon, The Stillness of the Colo and On the Bank of the Colo reveal his sustained fascination with the river and surrounding bushland. Other works, including Banksia, Banksia Metamorphosis, Spring Awakening and Hawkesbury Observation, bring the viewer closer to the forms and textures of the natural environment. Together, the collection demonstrates the considerable range within Shirvington's landscape practice — from recognisable views to increasingly expressive and abstract interpretations of nature.
Shirvington is also an accomplished illustrator. His children's books include Can You Find Me?, Little Spiral, The Koala and the Cockatoo and Three Dancing Frogs. Can You Find Me? was recognised as a Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book and was shortlisted for the Wilderness Society's Environment Award for Children's Literature. His work as an illustrator reflects the same fascination with animals, plants and interconnected natural systems that runs through his fine-art practice.
His work is represented in numerous public, institutional and private collections, including the State Library of New South Wales, Arthur Boyd Bundanon Collection, Kedumba Drawing Collection, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery and Macquarie University, as well as collections in Australia and overseas.
For Plum Gallery, this selection of Patrick Shirvington's work provides a particularly strong representation of an artist who has spent decades looking closely at the Australian environment. Seen together, the works trace his enduring relationship with the Colo and Hawkesbury landscapes and demonstrate how a familiar river, tree or banksia can become something more than a literal depiction of place — an expression of movement, memory and connection within the natural world.
