Phil Meatchem

Born in Sydney in 1958, Phil Meatchem won a “Wear a Yellow Raincoat” poster competition as a child. At nine, Disney’s Jungle Book decided him: animator. A year at Julian Ashton Art School; at sixteen, a commercials studio — forty years, junior to award-winning director of animation and live action. He still wanted to paint full-time, and a wish to simplify finally let him.

He entered art prizes and was selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 2017 — at his very first attempt. Seeing his work hung in the AGNSW was, in his words, "a huge thrill," and gave him the confidence to keep moving forward. He has since been a regular finalist in a good number of prizes, managing to win a couple, while spending much of his time on commission work. These days, gallery representation allows him to paint as he wants and thoroughly enjoy his craft: "I'm painting more for myself these days, and paint what I feel, as a true artist should." His work covers a vast number of styles, inspired by artists "from Monet to Mombassa."

That breadth found its most personal expression in a series of twenty paintings distilling the immortalised moments of Morning of the Earth, the beloved Australian surf film. Meatchem selected "little moments that I thought were important and that I loved": the Baddie Angourie section, dear to him since his first board — "a Native surfboard by Baddy," shaped for him as a wide-eyed kid at Manly; the Uluwatu walk-out with Steve Cooney and Rusty Miller; the MP cutback; playing the recorder in the bush. He could have gone on forever — "I actually wanted to do more" — but Tracks' head of marketing Damo called a halt: "20 is enough."

His process was lovingly analogue-meets-digital: he bought the remastered high-resolution film, scrolled through and froze the moments that would work, stored them on his phone, and transferred them to an iPad to paint from, blowing up sections with the soundtrack playing. "I just loved those couple of months painting away."

The Impressionistic style was, he explains, inevitable: "Monet was all about light and colour, and mood. And that film is crying out for that treatment." As for what the film means to Australians, his verdict is simple: "it's a vibe." And on why these canvases deserve to be seen in person: "When you go to a gallery to see paintings hanging on the wall, it's like you watch the artist's thoughts and strokes and you can see all that in the paint... You've got Morning of the Earth, you've got the image and then on top of that you've got an artist's eye on it. A Treatment. Another angle."