Simon Gunning in Sydney
By Chris Waddington
Let me say it again: Simon Gunning is an artistic alchemist. For decades, in his New Orleans studio, this Sydneysider has transmuted the raw materials of place — and the studio dross of oil paint, charcoal and ink — into visionary landscapes. Now, with his December 2025 exhibition at Maunsell Wickes Gallery, he brings the magic home. From Behind the Convict Wall centers on an expansive suite of Sydney Harbor drawings, and proves that Gunning is another kind of alchemist, too: able to tap his Australian roots readily, even as his accent and his art have taken an American cast.
Now in his sixties, Gunning speaks with delight about his boyhood on Sydney Harbor: How he
sometimes caught the family dinner from the rocky shores of Sugarloaf Bay at Castlecrag; how he rode the Manly ferry, and followed the Convict Wall. He grew up in a sailing family, and remembers wild rides at the tiller: “Roaring up Sydney Harbor into the face of a 25-knot black nor’easter is one of the great thrills in life,” he said.
Gunning’s artistic course also was set during his Australian youth — a time when the nation’s painters were very much in the spotlight. Arthur Boyd, Lloyd Rees, and Sidney Nolan were alive and exhibiting. Fred Williams became a mentor when Gunning attended the Victorian College of Art in Melbourne. Brett Whiteley was in the headlines for his wild lifestyle, expressionist manner, and consumate draftsmanship.
"The Corner"
As a young painter in New Orleans, Gunning brought all those experiences to bear. Australia had rewarded him early, confirming his sense of vocation, and his belief that painting and drawing could still be central to the culture. He understood that pursuing a personal vision— each mark a transcript of feeling — was more important than art school debates or the novelties served up by the market.
But Australia has always been more than an influence and fond memory for Gunning. The evidence is on the walls at Maunsell Wickes: two dozen harbor drawings and a few marine still lifes made between 1995 and 2025. Culled from the vast trove of Australian drawings that Gunning has accumulated over the decades, these works-on-paper reveal an artist who never takes a vacation, but carries a sketchbook wherever he goes. They range from quick, hand-sized sketches to detailed analytic pieces that required multiple site visits. All but a handful were done plein air, using a variety of techniques: ink wash, crow quill pen, and Pigma Micron markers.
" Picnic at Rushcutters Bay"
"Dogs meeting
at Rushcutters Bay"
The show is full of felicities. In Picnic at Rushcutters Bay, 2018, the burgeoning forms of palm and frangipani come to life in equally bold marks and sweeping gestures. Elsewhere along the Convict Wall, Gunning’s mastery of deep space and expressive, exaggerated perspective makes The Corner, 2018, feel like an invitation to voyage. In Dogs Meeting at Rushcutters Bay, 2019, Gunning finds watchspring energy amid urban clutter, with a densely packed, vertical composition built from bands of open lawn and clear sky, a hill with high-rise buildings, a forest of masts set against a scrim of dark foilage, and a fleet of anchored sailboats packed like tinned fish.
"Big Blue"
The exhibition centerpiece, Big Blue, 2025, lives up to its name, sprawling across three large sheets to capture a sweeping view of the city from Darling Point. Knit from thousands of discrete marks, Big Blue took over a month to complete in the studio, and brought together information from a lifetime of sketches and photographs. It’s a vista that most cameras would be hard pressed to capture, keeping myriad details in focus as it leads one’s eye from Rushcutters Bay to a
distant view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Gunning commands the whole space, deploying aerial, two-point and atmospheric perspective. He pulls this vast composition together by emphasizing the long sinuous line of the Convict Wall, which borders these parts of the inner harbor.
If Big Blue doesn’t document every aspect of Sydney, it does something just as remarkable by embodying the city’s scale, commercial energy, and sensuous setting. Big Blue is iconic — just like the city it represents — and it makes clear why 5.5 million locals are delighted to call Sydney home, Simon Gunning included.
Chris Waddington writes frequently for The Magazine Antiques, and has contributed to many notable American magazines, including Oxford American, Condé Nast Traveler, Outside, Art in America, and Utne Reader. He worked as a critic and editor at daily papers in New Orleans and Minneapolis. His publications include museum catalogs about several contemporary artists, among them, Nicholas Africano, Steven Sorman, Russell Chatham and Jean Seidenberg,