Former politician and Deputy Mayor of Brisbane, Hinchliffe spends much of his time traipsing the footpaths and laneways of cities like New York, Paris and Venice sketching, photographing and painting.
“It’s a tough job, but I’m up for it,” he joked.
Brisbane is his home base these days, but Toowoomba is where Hinchliffe grew up, and where he finds himself returning.
His grandfather and father worked at the Toowoomba Chronicle for around 50 years, and much of his family still lives in the Garden City.
Hinchliffe finds it “a sweet irony” that he will be artist-in-residence at the school which regularly beat his own Toowoomba State High in the pool when he swam competitively in his high school days.
He is, of course, very grateful for the opportunity and happy that he will be teaching and demonstrating his painting to Toowoomba Grammar students.
The paintings Hinchliffe will have on show reflect his travelling lifestyle and the cities which stimulate his art. Works depicting New York, Venice, Paris, London, and Toowoomba will be exhibited.
“It’s probably not on every international traveller’s to do list, but Toowoomba has its own intrinsic charm and quality,” he said.
“I think the laneways of Toowoomba are fast becoming an attraction of their own for the street art.”
On his own contemporary impressionist style of art, Hinchliffe says there are two main appeals which see people the world over cite impressionism as their favourite style.
“Firstly it’s a representational form of painting, so people can actually see what it is, as opposed to expressionist abstraction or conceptual art,” he said. “It’s also evokes an emotion, and the reason for that is that it’s dedicated to the proposition that less is more. You don’t fill in every detail. By giving an impression of the subject, you’re allowing people the opportunity to use their ‘third eye’, the eye of imagination.”
The Grammar Art Show will feature 600 paintings from 200 artists, and will place on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 March at Toowoomba Grammar School. Tickets for the Opening Night and High Tea are available now.
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