Tyrconnell Heritage Stamping Battery 3ft x 4ft oil on canvas Click to enlarge

Wet Season Mt Mulligan 3ft x 4ft oil on canvas Click to enlarge

Start of the Wet Season Tyrconnell Gold Mine 6ft x 4ft oil on canvas Click to enlarge

David Badcock
Plein Air Artist, Landscape Painter

David Badcock was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on the 28th of June 1960. At the time the family home had been well established as a fine art gallery - the first in the majestic surrounds of the South Island's Queenstown.

From an early age David ventured out on location with his father - Douglas Badcock - one of New Zealand's enduring landscape painters and an integral influence on David's formative years. With both of his older brothers being artists as well, the need to step out of the family shadow became quintessential in David's decision to break from the homeland. He arrived in Sydney in 1977 at the age of seventeen with the dream of establishing himself as an Australian landscape painter.

David's journey began as a commercial illustrator, learning a skill that would be relied upon in between his early explorations of the Australian landscape and light, in contrast to the 'land of the long white cloud'. From one of these adventures, his Flinder's Ranges collection captured the attention of The Elder Fine Art Gallery in Adelaide, who then exhibited David's location paintings for the first time in 1981, alongside the foremost in Australian landscape art.

By the late 1980's, under the directorship of The Upstairs Gallery in Cairns, a series of televised documentaries featuring 'Artists of the Far North' - an expedition in Kakadu, Cape York and The Valley of the Lagoons, gave David Badcock nationwide media recognition as a landscape artist. During these expeditions David was invited to paint landscapes of the Northern Territory for The Darwin Gallery - curating the first of many solo exhibitions throughout the 1990's and maintaining a professional association with David into the millennium.

The dream of being an Australian landscape painter would be realised early in David's career. On the opening night of his first solo exhibition, the traditional Aboriginal custodians of the Territory, represented by David's paintings, commented to the artist, "You capture our land".

Professionally painting in the tradition of plein-air for over 25 years, David occassionally uses location studies and photos as reference material to execute paintings in the studio, and is currently based in the Blue Mountains in NSW.

In 2008 Archers Fine Art editions published David's first plein-air art book - a stunning catalogue of 100 paintings by Badcock from Kakadu, Cape York, Charters Towers, Gordonvale, Cooktown, North Queensland to Mt Isa, Alice Srings, Sofala, Blue Mountains, Manly and Bondi. The book can be purchased online through All Arts Bookshop, and is also available through the Art Gallery of NSW Bookstore.

About The Hodgkinson Gold Fields Collection
The artwork in this collection is a culmination of two painting trips on location on the Hodgkinson Gold Fields and Mt Mulligan between August 2006 and February 2007. Discovered and named by the Queensland explorer James Venture Mulligan, shortly after he found payable gold on the Palmer River, beginning the great northern gold rush of 1876. There were between 10-12 quartz crushing stamping batteries in operation on the Hodgkinson Gold Fields, reflecting the importance to early settlement and industry of Far North Queensland.

For information on David Badcock's work and available paintings, please contact Steven Archer on 0413 947 17 or visit www.archersauctions.com.au.

Timelapse video of David Badcock painting on location around Manly beach Sydney NSW - July 2009

‘An artist of extreme capability who captures his compositions with tremendous accuracy.’ Jim Elder.

‘If there’s a vista to take your breath away, Badcock has probably stood out there with the heat and the flies and painted it.’ Tony Barnet, author of Cape York Concepts-Artists of the Far North 1988.

‘His location works of Kakadu, Ayers Rock and the Olgas sold within hours of the exhibition opening.’ The Upstairs Gallery, Cairns.

‘The light captured here is astounding...masterfully executed..the draftsmanship is superb.’
The Ernest Henry Memorial, Cloncurry Qld-Historical 1st Prize 1997.

"The Dance of the Brolgas" is the centerpiece of our home...I fought the customs battle (in 1993) to get it into the States.' Richard Walker, Washington, USA.