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Peter Russell-Clarke

In their own words

Recorded 2022

Peter Russell-Clarke
Audio: 1 minutes 59 seconds

The interesting thing about art to me and painting is you use the same thinking with painting. You're mucking around with colour, form, texture, shape. And with cooking, you're doing the same thing; you're mucking around with form, texture, colour and shape.

I started writing for television when television started. I noticed that the bloke in front of the camera got more money than the poor bugger that wrote the scripts. And so I decided to go from behind the camera to the front of the camera. I then realised that there were too many policemen on television and all sorts of other people that seemed to know what they were doing but there were no cooks. And a cook is what I am. I started cooking on television and the ABC said: no one will be interested. We did 900 shows before the ABC got bored.

Cooking is only supplying heat to food. The same as painting. Painting is supplying paint to a surface, whether it's a canvas or a piece of cardboard.

Do what you want to do. Do what you think is right. And then you'll create your own style, and your own imagination, because cooking is not following a recipe book. Cooking is your imagination and painting is your imagination. So make sure you think about what you're doing.

Audio transcript

Acknowledgements

This recording was made during interviews for the National Portrait Gallery's Portrait Stories series.

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Peter Russell-Clarke

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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