Discarding her regular uniform of steel-capped boots, a hard hat and a metal cage, Jane Bennett stands dwarfed by the high beige walls of Sydney’s National Heritage Centre where her April 2005 exhibition, Sydney’s Disappearing Industrial Treasures has been a big success.

"Sydney is eating itself, and I determine what gets into the history books, what is remembered," exclaims Bennett.

A resident of West Pymble and a formally-trained artist from Sydney’s City Art Institution, Bennett is fulfilling her quest to paint Sydney’s vanishing industrial sites.

To date, such disappearing icons have included industrial areas in Pyrmont, Cockatoo Island, the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf, BHP Steel Works in Newcastle and the Balmain Power Station.

"My paintings are a visual history,
a Gregory’s map of the disappeared,"
says Bennett.

"It’s a physically demanding job, at first I was swamped by it as I was testing myself against the epic scale of the landscape itself."

Such strain is not surprising due to the plain-air nature of Bennett’s work. She has admitted to "climbing chimneys, to get a good painting angle" and has even hitched a ride to the top of the ANZAC Bridge during an electrical storm to capture an industrial landscape below.

Most dangerous of all, however, was when she and her 60-kilogram easel fell out of a second floor window, rendering her desolate and unconscious, in an abandoned factory in Pyrmont.

John Crowley, Operations Manager for Patrick General Stevedorings shipping logistics at Darling Harbour, is "sure by looking at her previous works that Jane has at times been situated in some hairy spots whilst painting, but thankfully on my site I have capabilities to ensure that she is always in a safe and secured area." Further safety precautions adopted by Bennett include "hearing protection, industrial respirators and face masks."

Perhaps Bennett’s risk-taking stems from her belief that "the harder you work the luckier you get." Hard work has meant I have "created a genre for myself" in the art world as an urban landscape painter.

It has also led to her many major awards including her most recent, the Inaugural Sydney Harbour Week Award for Artistic Achievement in 2004. Most influential was however, the Marten Bequest Travelling scholarship awarded in 1996, which enabled her to paint in England, Scotland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Belgium.

The longevity of the classical ruins in Europe cemented her thoughts that Australians "don’t think their urban architecture is old enough to preserve, nor do they see potential uses for the future."

Evidence of this in Sydney was when the Pyrmont Power Station, which was supplying electricity to most of Sydney, was bulldozed only to be replaced by Star City Casino in 1997.

Bennett’s work, Pyrmont Power Station from Miller’s Point, (pictured above) reflects Bennett’s skill as a tonal painter. Her dramatic skyline has been composed through vigorous brush strokes in order to capture the fleeting moments of a sunset.

Her paintings can be "very moody and quite dark," says Anni Turnbull, curator of Paradise, Purgatory and Hellhole: a history of Pyrmont and Ultimo, an exhibition in which a selection of Bennett’s artworks are currently on display at the Power House Museum.

Bennett aims to impose order on chaos within her works and unlike many twentieth century artists she achieves
this through depth rather than flatness in her artworks. "Shadow can be used to physically eat away at all form, creating anxiety and doubt."

Although Bennett incorporates the styles of "Classicism, Romanticism and Realism" she claims to draw the greatest influence from the "cult of the romantic ruin and the Claudian landscape." Like the classical artist Pironesi — whom she much admires — her works are focused on balance, harmony and composition. Pyrmont Power Station from Miller’s Point displays these three facets well.

"It was fortunate she was in Pyrmont from the 1980s to the 1990s, during enormous physical and social change" said Turnbull. Crowley, a resident of Prymont from childhood however, said that, "Jane has captured a lot of the old sites, but she never had a chance to capture the old workman’s cottages," which no longer exist in the grandeur they once did.

Bennett is convinced she is painting the "end of Sydney’s industrial revolution." She hopes however, she is not "painting the decline and fall of a civilisation." People argue these old sites are junk," but Sydney is "getting to be a city that doesn’t produce anything."

Turning to history, Bennett argues that the Roman Empire was brought down because "industry was out in the provinces, people forgot how to fix stuff. [Similarly], people in Sydney are no longer practical."

Bennett believes by sending "all industry out west it [further] encourages a class divide, which we already have."

Always a realist, she "acknowledges that capturing the vision of Pyrmont
and Sydney’s other industrial areas, before they change forever, is a race against time."

Bennett believes people in Sydney are restless and don’t like anything old. "They want to pull down anything that is generally rotting and replace it," She laughs while saying "John Law’s apartment, is where the men’s toilets on the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf once were!"

Bennett’s most current exhibition is on display at the Taylor Galleries as part of a four-woman show. Talking fondly of gallery owner Max Taylor, Bennett says he "is the closest to a mentor, he never tried to talk me out of anything."
Taylor, — who has exhibited her for ten years on and off — says she is "intense about her unique works and possesses a lot of integrity. It is hard to muster "the courage to give up teaching and paint
full time," he exclaims.

I am "a commentator, the repository of memory, good, bad and indifferent" says the forty-six year old Bennett as her amber earrings, and strawberry blonde hair glisten in the sun. "It’s my empire, if I paint it, I own it, I own Sydney."

The Taylor Galleries exhibition, ‘Contrasting Images’ is open Thursday to Sunday
11am — 4pm, starting Thursday April 20. Admission is free.

Taylor Smith Gallery
116 Smith Street, Summer Hill
Phone: 9716 4039
http://www.artnews.com.au/taylorgalleries/