Hendrik Kolenberg: Sydney Roofscapes

Hendrik Kolenberg was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1946 and emigrated with his parents and elder brother to Australia in 1952. After several months at Bonegilla Migrant camp near Wodonga, Victoria, they settled in Adelaide. He had private lessons in painting from Carl Lock in 1962 and in drawing and watercolour from a relative, Kas Vandelaar, in 1964. He studied at the South Australian School of Art and Western Teachers' College, Adelaide 1965-1967, taught art in high schools in South Australia 1968- 1971, was an Education Officer at the Art Gallery of South Australia 1972. Travelled to Rotterdam 1973. After two years in London and The Hague he returned to Australia in December 1975 and taught art for a year in Adelaide. From 1976 until 2012 he was a curator at state art galleries in Perth, Hobart and Sydney. In 1982 he studied at the Print Room of the British Museum with a Harold Wright and Sarah & William Holmes Scholarship. Since 1992 he has travelled to Europe on a number of occasions, mostly on extended stays in the Netherlands. Drawing and painting has been a constant in his life since earliest childhood. He exhibited his work for the first time in Sydney in 1996.

'I find my subjects by observing the effect of daylight on buildings, roads, walls, fences and roofs. All forms and structures are revealed by light. I respond to certain arrangements or conjunctions of shapes created by the fall of light, as well as contrasts between sunlight and shadow. Daylight, the light of morning or evening, in summer or winter is ever enticing. Certain places are significant for me - especially where I was born and where I have lived. Walking in and around Sydney's suburbs over the last 35 years it is the chaotic variety of streets and rooftops that most attracts me; old and new, abandoned buildings or those being constructed, and the bustling city centre with its densely packed high-rises. And I particularly enjoy finding new and interesting chimneys and air-conditioning ducts which suggest human personalities, bodily parts or character traits. Their variety is seemingly endless.'