Profile: Australian Visual Artist & Painter Leith O'Malley

				Leith O’Malley has been a professional artist for 25 years. Born in Mt. Barker in the Adelaide Hills district of South Australia, he currently lives in the small regional city of Whyalla. “The art community is very small here, which has kind of been advantageous for me in that I have avoided to some extent the academic art trends or rules so many get caught up in within metropolitan art circles.” says Leith. Born in “nineteen-hundred-and-frightened-to-death,” Leith says he is “literally working in the arts from the moment I wake up, whether I’m in my actual studio or not.”
				For myself, it is a lifelong love affair with the light and darkness of self-expression, and the irrepressible urge to create something that conjures a moment of insight or memory. Irrepressible? Hang on a minute. Did I just quote Monkey?
				I’m chipping away at two quite different works in progress at the moment—both in entirely different mediums. One is an unnamed and unfinished figurative oil and collage combination on canvas, whilst the other is a digital portrait entitled “The Day Dreamer,” which I have been working on via a drawing tablet and Photoshop. The canvas work depicts three painters (Picasso, Francis Bacon, and Andy Warhol) riding a bicycle and surrounded by the torn remains of one of my art books, whilst the digital portrait was something that emerged out of me simply trying out a few new natural media brushes in Photoshop recently.
				I have a few things keeping me busy at the moment and some exciting projects for the coming months…next few years, in fact. I have just completed a few CD cover art projects and am now preparing work for a couple of group shows in Adelaide during 2012 and 2013. This, along with requested artworks for the galleries that represent me, commissioned pieces and art for publications, doesn’t leave me a lot of time to spare, unfortunately. I’m also hoping to negotiate my work for showing in Dallas again and hope to keep everyone updated via my website and/or social media connections. There are still works of mine available via the Sydney and Melbourne gallery along with signed prints you can purchase directly from me via the contact details below.
				So many things inspire me on different levels. The most obvious is my everyday life and the disjointed collage of parts of my day or week that I carry around in my head. There are also the smaller, less significant moments or discoveries I tend to reinterpret, from looking through a lens, or discovering an interesting line in a book or poem. Some of this ends up in sketchbooks or moleskins, whilst others become photographs (a recent distraction) or get stored in that fragmented hard drive I call my subconscious. The nature of an artist is receptivity and expression, and I guess I fall into that category of collecting images, moments, side glances and imagery that I later draw upon in the creation of a piece of art or even writing.
				I guess I’m most proud of just being true to myself as far as the work goes. It’s important to me to continue to try to maintain a level of originality and individuality. That’s a difficult thing in this day and age where we have so much readily available art and photography to soak up online. But knowing the difference between being inspired by somebody’s work as opposed to imitating it has always remained a defining factor, and I hope it is this which distinguishes my work from some others’. I take the “personal journey” part of art quite seriously, so truth plays an essential role if I am to stay interested in a piece I am working on for any length of time. One can often run out of steam about halfway through a picture so it’s important the image or idea maintains its original interest. It’s probably the reason I like a lot of my rough sketches ahead of finished paintings.
				So I guess I am most proud of that fundamental approach to creating the art I do. It has contributed in reaching several goals, including having my work exhibited in various metropolitan galleries in Australia and indeed overseas.
				I love music and I also occasionally like to mix natural and digital media together, so having an opportunity to work on music-related posters, magazine articles, and cover art has always interested me. I have dabbled in some of it over the years and even created promotional art for some jazz festivals in New York and Moscow, so yes…doing a little more of that in the future would be interesting, especially if the right opportunities come up. It’s more of a design and composition ethic and very different from creating art for a gallery exhibition, but I do enjoy putting that hat on from time to time.
				There are a lot of gifted, creative artists I either keep a close eye and ear on or immerse myself in, whether I’m working in the studio, driving or relaxing at home. On the visual arts front, I am currently enjoying the paintings of Francis Bacon, but I continually visit or revisit the works of many artists whose work strikes a personal chord with me. Some of these include notable people like Francis Goya, Pablo Picasso, Jean Michel Basquiat, Sean Cheetham, Kent Williams, Sterling Hundley, Francis Bacon, Robert Crumb, Modigliani (I could go on). I would add a few talented Australian creatives to that list, such as Paul Ruiz, Kim Buck, Michael Leunig, Shaun Tan, Peter Booth, Brett Whiteley…but it’s a list that is continually evolving. What I respect and admire most about these people is that they have a large degree of originality in their work. It’s just so much more exciting and interesting to me if an artist is breaking a few rules or pushing themselves throughout their work. In short, different from the mainstream. The same goes for photography and music. It’s much the same reasons I love listening to the eclecticism and wordsmithery of musicians like Tom Waits, Laura Veirs, Morrissey, and Nick Cave. Oh, and Mr. Warhol would be pleased to know I especially love The Velvet Underground. Inspirational/instrumental mood music for the studio this week includes compositions by Olafur Arnalds, John Coltrane, early New York jazz bebop, and the delicious gut-wrenching blues of Chicago and New Orleans.
				Living and working anywhere in the world demands a certain financial independence, but if I was to follow that line of fanciful and at once financial thought, it would most likely be just outside of London…surrounded by beautiful, rolling green fields. I would be too exhausted to paint much each evening however, as I would no doubt be on a twelve-hour gallery and music crawl each day. Believe it or not I’m quite happy here in Southern Oz or anywhere else in the world for that matter…just as long as I have my solitude, my studio, and am surrounded by good art materials, music, and the people I love. Having said that, great food and wine is important to me…so if there is anyone out there who wouldn’t mind me hanging around making a nuisance of myself in the south of France or Tuscany one day, I’d love to hear from you too! Hehe…
				Gosh, let me think… Working in a carpenters shop. That seems like a lifetime away but I must say the experience has helped me make my own canvas supports and picture frames over the years.
				The neighbour’s Shih Tzu dog. Just kidding. As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to switch off from creative thoughts and I often find myself climbing into bed after a late night in the studio still thinking of the next stage of a painting. I’m usually still visualising the work in my mind up until the point I fall to sleep. Last night I was thinking about including an AK-47 and a Shih Tzu in a painting.
				Visit Leith… www.leithomalley.com Leith O’Malley on Facebook Leith O’Malley on Twitter