Sunshine is coming.


Bill's Cafe  (1993)
Size: Two panels combined 180cm W x 130cm H
Medium: Bitumen, Gold Leaf, Newsprint, Charcoal on board
PRIVATE COLLECTION

"In the cafe of outside time
The outdoor cafe of time
Find a place to seat yourself
Where, without coffee or cigarettes or wine,
You may observe the subtleties of gesture and concealment
Measure the ghostly vestments of relationships
Judge the balances of need
And if you hear amid the hard-won myths of memory
A bird's momentary song
It will be as if you had been permitted
A cold glass of pure water
Before being moved on by the management"
                                                                                  - Bill Paton

This artwork was inspired by the above poem by Bill Paton.
The painting shows people alone in a bar (on Oxford Street Darlinghurst)
The main figure sits head down on table. 
In front of him is his glowing “cold glass of pure water”.

The empty cavernous space of the bar is being filled by the dawning light 
flooding through the huge bay window on the right of the work.

There was nothing half measured about Bill Paton. A real artist.

Bill Paton left us too early in his talented life.

This artwork was awarded the Community Lawyers Art Prize (CLAP)
at the 1993 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. 
(And what a great year's Mardi Gras that was. It had real heart in it.)

(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE)