Sitting in warm winter sunshine on his five acre property near Blackbutt in Queensland, John Spies, looking somewhat like a religious cult leader was dressed in a black and gold silk shirt. He spoke
quietly and deliberately with a distinctive Dutch Accent.
His golden lock of hair framed his pale face. One long fingernail extended two centimetres from his forefinger, and with every work, his kind blue eyes glistened.
John, now in his 68th year, has seen a lot of life’s ups and downs. His faith in humans has been severely tested from his early childhood in Nazi occupied Holland, to his various battles with
bureaucracy in Australia. As a result he has a great passion for animals. A passion which began when he started drawing lizards as a child and has never left him. His art today depicts the exquisite
beauty he sees in our Australian nocturnal wildlife.
John’s mother was so impressed with his ability to draw at the age of five when he had just completed his first detailed sketch of a railway station, that she bought him a little tin with
coloured paints, gave him a brush and declared to John’s father, “This boy was born with a brush in his hand.”
John immediately started to take an interest in the natural world because the real world was a war-ravaged one.
“I used to sit in front of the window.” Said John. “I had small lizards and would hold them against the window. Then I would paint all the colours I could see inside
them.”
During the war and up until the age of about twenty, John sought solitude in the forest near his home town and came to prefer the company of the forest animals to that of most humans. He migrated to
Australia with his family in 1955 and settled in Tasmania. Here he was astonished at the great variety of Australian wildlife, in particular the nocturnal animals.
John worked at a number of tasks including taxidermy and tanning of hides. He continued to practise art in his spare time.
He moved to New Zealand in the early 1960s and learned much about the physiology of animals while he worked at the Auckland Museum conducting autopsies on long frozen bird and animal specimens. John
believes his knowledge of animal physiology and anatomy helps to create the lifelike poses of his stunning paintings.
In 1969 a shocking industrial accident blinded him when a 44 gallon drum of detergent exploded in his face. He thought he would never paint again. Fortunately the blinding was only temporary,
although he now has double vision in one eye and is deaf in the right ear.
John’s second wife Marjie, is 31 yeas his junior. She is constantly by his side and enthusiastically extols the virtues of his painting ability. “I wouldn’t be able to paint without
her.” said John.
The two of them, living in their bushland isolation surrounded by John’s beloved wild animals, live a simply but rewarding life. John insists he has no desire for material things but instead
devotes his life to passing on his artistic skills by teaching what he knows to anyone willing to learn. He conducts art classes every week in his modest home.
The work of his students display the same unique style and quality which makes John’s work so distinctive.
In recent years John’s health has not been good. He recently had a triple bypass heat operation. “I wouldn’t have bothered for myself,.” He said, “but I need to live
longer to pass on what I have learnt about painting so there will always be a record of our wild animals.”
Although he has never had any formal art training, John has finely honed his skills to such an extent that one of his recent animal paintings fetched $18,000.
He has used this money, and that from the sale of other paintings to establish his art school. “I have no real use for money,” he said, “I really hate the stuff. I’m just
painting for the next generation.”
“When I’m dead,” John said wryly, “I don’t what a coffin. Just a hole in the ground and cover me with a sheet. Everyone can come around and have a good time and bring a
few drinks.”
When John Spies does die, it will be a sad loss to both the art world and Australia but the legacy of his art will live on.
