Nathan Paddison is a phenomenon. He only started painting four years ago. In the two last years, since he has honed his unique, contemporary style, he's sold more than 350 artworks.
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On Monday, he was announced by Newcastle Art Gallery as the winner of the People's Choice award in the Kilgour Prize, garnering the most votes through online voting (the gallery has been closed during Kilgour Prize exhibition due to COVID-19).
His winning work, Flour Sail, is "a self portrait of harder times, the flowers representing anything I could find to make a quick buck even a droopy flower" he says in the artist statement.
The People's Choice prize is worth $5000. For Paddison, it's the winning that matters.
"Winning is more important than the money," he says. "I didn't care about the money."
Age 38, Paddison works from the garage at his home in Tinonee, just outside of Taree. Originally from Sydney, he's gradually moved north, first to the Central Coast, then Ellalong and now the Manning River area.
"I think it's an escape thing," he says of the relocation "Up here I am by myself. I focus on my art. I've got a girlfriend and kids and art.
"I go to the gym. And work from 3pm until 3am. I usually work until midnight. If something is going on, I can't stop... sometimes I have to stick with it."
He's so driven he often does a painting a day. It's not unusual for him to be working on three canvases at once.
At that pace it may seem like he is making up for lost time. But it's just the way he is.
"I've always painted a lot," he says. "I just love it. I just can't stay away from it."
He was a personal trainer, heavily focused on Muay Thai boxing before the career switch four years ago.
He started with works on paper, and gradually worked into acrylic paint on canvas. He's refined his systems - buying big rolls of canvas rather than stretched frames (it ships better rolled up, he says), mixing his paints in tubs so he can keep colours rather than mixing on the palette - and found the right agencies.
"I was told early on not to look at any artists," he says of his colourful, kinetic style. "Kerry Armstrong, from Studio Gallery, said don't get taught by anyone - My style is so unique, stay with it."
"I just taught myself..."
With works priced roughly between $2000 to $15,000 and representation that gets his work seen in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, he's on the right track.
It spills straight from his mind onto the canvas: "I love it. I can't stop painting. It's part of me. I used to figure them out. They are me, the way they come they are me."
When he's away from his studio, he jots thoughts and images down. But once back at work, it's from a blank start.
"I put down grey, then white over it," he says of his process. "I put see-through white over grey. It sort of let's me know where to go with it, where to start. As long as I start getting paint on there... it flows from there."
He only recently began doing abstracts. His focus has been on figurative and animal images, with his style evolving to show more expression, more freedom in his strokes and lines.
It's not just art lovers drawn to his work. This year he has been a finalist in the Lester Prize in Western Australia and the Naked & Nude Art Prize at the Manning Regional Art Gallery, as well as the Kilgour.
He has his sights on bigger prizes: he's finalising arrangements to do a portrait of Ken Done to enter in the Archibald Prize.
