Brian Pinkstone
Artist Bio
Brian Pinkstone is a retired academic who took up watercolour
painting a few years ago. His academic fields are Economic History and Political Economy and his major work was Global Connections: a History of Exports and the Australian Economy AGPS 1992. He was Head of the School of Economics and Finance at Western Sydney University from 1995 to 2007 and again in 2013. He was also a Foundation member of the International Association for Critical Realism based at the University of Cambridge UK. He has spent more than 40 years researching and teaching about the causes and associated tendencies of capitalist development over the long run and in particular the neo-liberal globalisation project that has dominated global economic development for the past four decades.
Artist Statement
I’ve always had an interest in art and especially the beautiful- though often challenging - effects that can be achieved through the medium of watercolours. So I decided to take up watercolours as a hobby a few years after my retirement. I am now starting to develop the skills which allow me to create works that are informed by my academic knowledge of the underlying mechanisms that have created the world that we now live in and the disastrous developmental tendencies that will, if left unchecked, threaten the very survival of much of the life on earth- including the human species. My aim as an artist is to juxtapose the beauty of watercolours with a serious message about political, economic and ecological questions.