Born in Hay, NSW, Australia, in 1941, Oxley has been a professional painter, sculptor and printmaker for more than 30 years. He works in all mediums including ceramics, metals, fibre and timber. His own self portrait was hung in the prestigious Archibald competition. He was also chosen to paint the portraits of Sir Phillip Baxter and the legendary NSW premier, Jack Lang.
Oxley was also co-ordinator of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and Director of Tweed Shire Council’s Regional Gallery during the 1980s, and has taught art at NSW and Queensland universities and TAFEs – as well as being an Australia Council “Artist in Residence”.
Oxley works in an astonishing range of mediums from oil to acrylic paints to metal, clay and wood. He has been a full time artist since 1967, and not content to master the techniques of etching and fibre sculpture, Oxley is also a poet and contemporary musician.
Oxley is a prolific painter and his works are to be found in Parliament House, Sydney, The Lodge in Canberra and the Sydney Opera House as well as many private and corporate collections and galleries throughout Australia.
Widely admired as one of the most accomplished artists and art teacher on the Sunshine Coast, Oxley now lives in Montville with his wife Kim and young daughter, Emma. Son, Tim Oxley lives in Maryborough, and daughter Rachael in NSW.
1 I enjoy painting portraits because the face of any person holds the entirety of their life. We are so attuned to the subtilty of expression learned subliminally over time. To look into aface and” read” those “maps of time” area challenge. I believe any portrait painted by a competent artist is afision between artist and sitter.
A photograph can never rival a well paintedportrait because time is strippedfrom the equation. A photograph is probably recording a 60th of one second in time. A painting is ajusion of impressions over hours, days or weeks. Each hour tempered by conversations between artist and sitterfor the duration of the portrait. This interaction isfinally what is recorded. It is not a ‘frozen moment “. It is a visual documentation ofa whole string of moods, feelings and views represented in the sitterfrom which all can see the whole person.
“Likeness ” is paramount in a portrait – without a likeness there is only a painting. A painting only becomes a portrait when it “portrays ” a person.
Kevin Oxley