Life Art Class - Mitcham Hall: In the City of Adelaide

On a brisk winter's morning a Life Drawing Group gathers in the cold cavernous confines of the Mitcham Hall for a few naked truths. The class has a very impressive pedigree. It's first tutor, twenty years ago, was none other than famous Australian artist Robert Hannaford, the Archibald Prize winner whose works grace many an art gallery and board room around the country, with some always on show at the Riverton Railway Station Art Gallery in the midnorth.

Now these art lovers take a less structured approach - there's no set lesson and no tutor, though there's always someone on hand to help unravel the mysteries of the human form. Just as an architect needs a sense of proportion to design a building that makes sense, so too an artist needs a grid pattern to make sense of the human body.

“Basically it's all verticals and horizontals... Checking the key points.. Now remembering that no matter how fat or how skinny a person is the bone hits the surface at certain spots... The chin, the cheek bones.”

While a sense of proportion is standard, it's about the only thing that is as the class members strip away all artistic constraint in the pursuit of their own individual styles. For Cathy Steer, the grand daughter of the late great Sir Hans Heysen, the model is captured on paper in a more classical style while for Zorbas Kandilotis, the life drawing session is a chance to explore something a little different:

“This is something which possibly originates with Picasso and I follow it from there.”

And why one colour over another? For Zorbas they're choices beyond rational thought.

“Without really looking and hesitating it flows much better. More rigorous... More verve. Yes you can't reason in art. Not with your head. You have to reason with your blood.”

And this class it's a case of each to their own - a philosophy that becomes obvious the more you compare the works of those who've spent the past two hours trying to capture the same thing. The mystery of the human form is very different to still life and landscape.

“It's the hardest to make a figure look right because we all know what a figure looks like. And that's the difference.”

An exhibition of works by the Mitcham Life Drawing Group is currently on show at Vintage Cellars in Russell Street, Belair. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au