John Honeywill

“I paint the quiet visual conversations between everyday objects; paintings that explore presence and stillness in the genre of the still life – a genre that links the intimate world with the public. I am often drawn to a subject because of the beauty I find in it; sometimes it is its quality of ‘otherness’ – how the subject creates other possibilities in the ways it is viewed and felt.” John Honeywill, 2020

John Honeywill is a Brisbane based still-life painter who meticulously depicts everyday objects elevating them from the domestic to the visceral through his mastery of light, colour and space. Disregarding narrative, a traditional trope of still-life painting, instead Honeywill seeks to capture a stillness and mood. His paintings are about the perception and the presence of the objects themselves.

Honeywill has spent the past four decades balancing a career as both professional artist and visual arts educator. He studied painting at the Australian Flying Art School, and has learnt under prolific Australian artists such as Roy Churcher, Betty Churcher, Mervyn Moriarty and William Robinson. A skilled Queensland painter, Honeywill’s work is held in collections across Australia, including Queensland Art Gallery, Museum of Brisbane and the Australian National Library, Canberra.