Ben Winspear

Ben Winspear VAS is a Melbourne based artist whose practice largely centres around landscape painting and the portrait. He is a winner of the 2016 AME BALE and of the James Farrel Self Portrait Prize.

Ben Winspear VAS plein air painting

I was born in the UK into a seriously creative family. As a third-generation painter, art and creativity in all forms has always been a part of my life. And indeed, some of my earliest memories are laying on the floor in the warm sunlight pouring over Da Vinci’s drawings such as his Mother and Child or his fascinating dissections (yes, I was keen to cut things up with a scalpel, but Mum said no and showed me her frog dissection drawing from art school).

Full Bloom

Oil on canvas

My grandfather was a long-time member of the London Toynbee Art Club, established in 1886 and still going today, and my mother studied Art at the London Polytechnic.

Emily

Watercolour

So, my formative years were heavily influenced by art and artistic conversations, in addition to being taught solid technical foundations in many areas, as well as creative ways to make art. I remember my mother has a Peace Rose right at the back door. She would go outside and proceed to cut off a short section of the dead wood, sharpen it with a pencil sharpener and hand it to me along with a bottle of Indian ink to draw with. Other times she would just trim up a feather I had collected on the road somewhere and turn it into a drawing quill.

All this instilled in me a great love of the masters, the tradition, and how all contemporary art (current day) is in some way connected to these great masters.

Sense of Place

Triptych, Oil on canvas

Emigrating with my family to Australia in 1974, my arts education and enthusiasm continued until I became distracted by life and then raising a family. I went on to have other careers, including driving trucks and earthmoving machinery amongst other things. While doing this, I was, of course outdoors, and in touch with nature and the weather, and I had always had a great love of the Australian light and its effect upon our beautiful Australian landscape. During this time, I didn’t do any painting - until the age of 31 when I had an instant ‘aha’ moment having picked up a pencil one weekend upon being a little bored. It was if I had been struck by lightning…and I knew instantly that I wanted to become a professional artist and pursue the passion ignited in my younger years.

North Harcourt, Oak Forest

Oil on linen

Knowing that, I proceeded to seek out a good tutor and fortune struck when I came across Lace McNeil from MARA Academy. I studied with him for approximately six years, in which he gave me a good grounding in the use of quality material, the desire to pursue excellence and authenticity, and a love of en plein air painting.

Treeline Yarra Valley

Oil on canvas

Through him I met my very good friend and mentor Bob Senior, Founder of Senior Art Supplies Australia. Through many conversations around materials and processes with Bob I have continued to further pursue deepening my historical and practical knowledge and I am a proud Ambassador for Michael Harding paints here in Australia (yes, they are very good!). I also then went on to teach – including at VAS – and hold workshops around Australia, as well as regular trips to The Flinders Ranges and to Italy and Spain.

Yarra Valley Winter Landscape

Oil on canvas

En plein air is a great love of mine – and one which I can never get enough of. I have painted in all weathers and situations – from noisy protests on the steps of Parliament to 15 degrees in Europe under 5 feet of snow, to 47 degrees in the Mallee summer – I’ll take on any challenge to stand in front of a subject and to paint my emotional response. Sometimes that is more ‘realist’ than other times depending on my own mood and what I seek at the time.

Showers over Swan Bay

Oil on canvas

Currently, my work is an ongoing search for a visual language that reflects both how I view the external world and the inner landscape of my faith, perception, and experience. Part of this journey has become a natural evolution toward semi-abstraction, not as a departure from my practice, but as a continuation of it—a process of distillation that seeks to reveal the essence rather than the appearance of what I encounter.

I am also working for a large solo show in January 2027 in Warburton in the Yarra Valley.

Our Ways of Being

Oil on linen