Could it be that my paintings are just too colourful? This strikes me as peculiar, but after an interesting discussion with someone involved with the high end art scene of Melbourne, this is something I am now considering. It seems people in Melbourne prefer to purchase Art that is not too colourful. And it does correspond with a number of artworks that I do come across in the more high end portion of the Art Market. It seems that the more 'serious' one considers the artist, the more darker, subdued and muted the colour palette. Those bright, dazzling and sometimes hyper colourful works, are more aligned with 'amateurs', "hobby artists", for people with less sophisticated tastes. I never connected this before. It seems, as I have a strong narrative element to my work as well, having the strong colour and the meaningful narrative are too confronting, so one has to be toned down. I find that the sensibilities of something so essential to human nature, colour can be such a determinate of a 'whole' culture, the Melbourne art culture, is a revelation. I was thinking upside down. I see grey everywhere here; the clothes, the buildings, the skies, the sea and I wanted to bring colour into the greyness. Colour is why I am a painter. Using colour, choosing the palete is the joy of it. The boldness, the harmonies of colour, I relish it. I like food that has deep, colourful flavours. I like environments that hum with colour, be they greens of the tropics, blues of the skies and seas in Queensland and Western Australia. A field of yellow sunflowers, the red sands of the desert. The warmth of tones, that warm the soul. So how to navigate this new understanding.