About Grant Windle

About the Artist

Grant Windle has a Bachelors Degree in Ministry. Age 63yrs. Married 43 years. 3 sons. 5 grandsons. Living in Brisbane, Australia. 

Grant is a passionate artist working in oils and acrylics whose works are held in many private collections throughout Australia and North America.

Grant’s subjects and styles are very eclectic but a few areas of specialty are…

• Australian landscape

• Americana

• Cubism influenced abstract

• Still life flora

• Legacy paintings

A special feature that Grant offers on a commission basis is ‘legacy paintings’. Grant will paint a family legacy painting from any photo (e.g. a childhood home) and turn it in to a beautiful painting that will become a lasting legacy for any family. Click HERE to find out more about Legacy Paintings.

In his own words...

Often people comment to me about the variety of styles that I paint. I call it eclectic, but some people just call it ‘undecided’, and they are probably right. But I am eclectic in most things that I do. As a musician I play everything from jazz to folk. I write books, make documentaries, do public speaking, I love the country and the city, I love all types of food and I’ve lived in many countries and many different locations. Are you getting the picture? Not boasting, I just get bored easily and crave variety. 

And so it is with painting! I love to paint semi-abstract/cubism/still life in bright colors - yet having said that, painting landscapes is something I love dearly. I have a strong attachment for the country yet I have never lived in the country. In fact, I am a city guy through and through. I'm scared of cows and can never figure out farm gates. I am an urban dweller who loves the coffee shops and culture. 

So why do I paint a lot of landscapes? Perhaps this will explain. All of my working life I have been a spiritual person working with faith communities and helping people on their journey. But to do that, I have to dwell at the source. In the last 40 years wherever I have lived in various cities around the world, I have always had a solitary place in the bush or forests where I would go a few times every week and simply spend time with the Creator. Whether, Warryndyte in Melbourne, Mt. Cootha in Brisbane, Burleigh mountain on the Gold Coast, the pine forests of South Carolina, the deserts of Washington or the canyons of Los Angeles - it seems I have spent thousands of hours walking a trail and breathing in the beautiful creation. I have been there in my lowest lows and my highest highs and everything in between working out the complexities of life and yielding myself to the greater one.  

So, the country, the bush, the forest is where I find myself and my Creator and where too, I have fallen in love with the land. That’s why you’ll rarely see people in my landscapes – I go there to be alone. As I walk I see trees, flowers, skies, clouds, mountains, oceans and wildlife (snakes too often), all with infinite color and smells that fill my senses and somehow centers me. It’s pure, it’s untouched, it’s unspoilt, it’s organic, and it’s all been there long before I was born and will be there long after I am gone.

But ‘painting’ landscapes is all about one thing to me – color. There of course are many other important factors such as value and composition, yet to me color is what sets one painting apart from another. That’s the reason I never wear sunglasses when I walk because I don’t want to change the colors of what I’m seeing, and the same goes for painting. Allowing for the fact that all art is interpretive, I let the landscape tell me the colors not the other way around. After all, it knows better than me. It’s the expert! I am but a steward of it’s imagery and a servant of its beauty, that through the portrayal of art I might take others there.

I also draw my inspiration from having traveled the world mostly through much of America and my homeland Australia where anything with shape, color and architecture can catch my attention. I paint in oils and acrylics from semi-realism to traditional to semi-impressionism and I love it all. I paint what I love and I want you to experience what I love about it. The subject, the light, the mood and colors all combine to become the story I want to tell you in my painting.