By Charlene Gatt
FOOTSCRAY’S Happy River Café is exploding with colour, thanks to a new exhibition by local artist Eileen Muir.
Thirteen still lifes and portraits, including a very special one of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard done from a photo in a newspaper, will be on display until the end of the month.
“I’ve experimented with white backgrounds, where usually I use very bright backgrounds. There still are some bright backgrounds, but I thought I’d try a more subtle background, but I don’t think I can be a subtle painter,” Ms Muir said.
“It’s just something I really, really love doing.”
Ms Muir has been painting since the late 1970s and is a long-time member of the Maribyrnong River Edge Arts Movement (MREAM).
She said her life changed when MREAM was evicted from its Moreland St studio after 20 years in 2008 to make way for an apartment block.
The group later moved to Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West in Maribyrnong.
“I can’t paint at home. A lot of people like to paint in solitude, but I prefer to have the interaction with other painters around me, I find it incredibly stimulating,” Ms Muir said.
She said MREAM’s new home was a perfect mix of “tranquility and suburbia” for her new creative lodgings.
